Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 7835I

Whitbread PLC

21 June 2011

 



21st June 2011

WHITBREAD INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

Continuing growth with total sales up 9.2%

Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group, today reports its trading performance for the 13 weeks to 2nd June 2011.

Sales update (% change vs. prior year)

	Sales for the 13 weeks to 2nd June 2011
	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales
Premier Inn	3.0%	8.1%
Restaurants	(1.4)%	0.2%
Hotels and Restaurants	1.1%	4.8%
Costa*²	4.0%	22.5%
Total	1.7%	9.2%

*¹ Premier Inn: UK and Ireland only. Costa and Restaurants: UK only.

*² Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment.  Post IFRIC 13 like for like sales would be 1.0%  higher and total sales 1.3%  higher.

Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:

"The trading momentum of the Group in the first quarter was consistent with the outlook at our preliminary results announcement at the end of April. Total sales increased by 9.2% with like for like sales up 1.7% although our business was adversely affected by the extended Easter and Royal Wedding holiday. Since then Costa and Premier Inn have traded well. Premier Inn revpar is continuing to benefit from a stronger London market, whereas in the provinces our Restaurants are being impacted in a more difficult casual dining market. 

We are continuing with disciplined investment in our network to deliver our 5 year growth milestones. We are confident that investing in our strong brand propositions of Premier Inn and Costa and introducing further value offers in Restaurants will enable us to win market share and deliver good returns for our shareholders. In Q1 Costa grew total sales by 22.5% and Premier Inn's total sales grew by 8.1%."

Trading highlights for the 13 weeks:

Hotels and Restaurants

·     Total room nights sold rose by 5.9% to 2.9 million.

·     Premier Inn like for like occupancy was 75.3% (13 weeks 2010/11: 75.1%).

·     Premier Inn like for like revpar grew by 2.4% with occupancy up 0.2ppts and rate up 2.2%.

·     Premier Inn like for like Revpar grew by 8.8% in London and by 1.2% in the provinces.

·     Restaurants delivered total covers growth of 0.8%.

·     743 new rooms and 3 restaurants have opened and for the full year we plan to have opened around 4,000 new rooms and 14 restaurants.

Costa

·     Costa continued its strong performance with total system sales up 20.4% to £182.5 million and total franchise system sales up 18.8% to £75.9 million.

·     Like for like sales in UK equity stores were up 4.0% with transactions up 5.1%.

·     Costa opened 73 new stores in the first 13 weeks.  In 2011/12 we will add approximately 300 stores worldwide. We will also rebrand 500 units to Costa Express and add a further 200 new units taking the total Costa Express/Coffee Nation estate to around 1,100 units.

Group

·     The strong financial position of the Group remains unchanged

Notes:

Site detail		4 March 2011	Opened	Closed/ transferred	2 June 2011
Premier Inn UK		43,219	743	0	43,962
Premier Inn Int'l		1,076	0	0	1,076
Total Premier Inn (rooms)		44,295	743	0	45,038
Restaurants (sites)		379	3	-1	381
Costa UK	Equity	736	23	-3	756
	JV	0	0	0	0
	Franchise	481	22	-2	501
Total Costa UK (stores)		1,217	45	-5	1,257
Costa Int'l	Equity	86	5	0	91
	JV (1)	114	7	-2	119
	Franchise (2)	454	16	-10	460
Total Costa Int'l (stores)		654	28	-12	670
Total Costa (stores)		1,871	73	-17	1,927

(1)International JV includes Shanghai which is a subsidiary with a 51% interest.  At the year end this was also disclosed in International JV

(2)Franchise now includes the Russian and Ukrainian franchises, at the year end these were disclosed within International JV (10/11: 7 franchises)

Conference call for analysts and investors

Andy Harrison and Christopher Rogers will be available for a conference call at 8.00am today.  To participate, dial 0808 238 0673 and enter Conference ID: 76104899.

A recording of the conference call will be available until the 5th July 2011.  To listen, dial 0800 953 1533 and enter the passcode 76104899#.  This service will be active approximately two hours after the conference call has finished.

Please dial into the call ten minutes before to ensure you don't miss the start.

For more information please contact:

Investor Relations

Christopher Rogers, Whitbread PLC        [phone]

Press Contacts

Anna Glover, Whitbread PLC                  [phone]

David Allchurch, Tulchan                        [phone]

For photographs and video please visit our media library on www.whitbreadimages.co.uk

Notes to Editors

Whitbread PLC is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group operating market-leading businesses in budget hotels, restaurants and coffee shops.  Its well-loved brands are Premier Inn, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table, Taybarns and Costa.

Whitbread PLC employs over 40,000 people globally and serves over 10 million customers every month in over 2,000 outlets across the UK.

Whitbread has outlined five-year growth milestones (to 2015/16) to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms by 50% to at least 65,000, add 80-100 new Restaurants and to double the size of Costa with global system sales of £1.3bn and 3,500 stores worldwide.

In the year ended 3 March 2011, Whitbread PLC reported a 11.5% increase in Group Revenue to £1,599.6 million and Underlying Profit before tax of £287.1 million up 20.1%.

Whitbread PLC is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100. It is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index.

 

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