Trading Statement

RNS Number : 2261Y

Whitbread PLC

28 February 2012

 

WHITBREAD Trading Update

Total sales growth of 11.0%; on track to deliver earnings in line with expectations.

  

Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group, today reports its trading performance for the 50 weeks to 16^th February 2012.

Sales update (% change vs. prior year)

	Sales for the 11 weeks to 16th February 2012		Sales for the 50 weeks to 16th February 2012
	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales
Premier Inn*2	(0.9%)	3.7%	3.4%	8.7%
Restaurants	2.2%	4.3%	(0.1%)	1.9%
Hotels and Restaurants	0.5%	4.0%	2.0%	5.9%
Costa*3	6.2%	24.4%	5.8%	25.0%
Total	1.8%	10.1%	2.7%	11.0%

Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:

"Whitbread has delivered good total sales growth of 11.0% for the year in difficult economic conditions, as we continue to invest in our strong brands. We expect to report in April another full year of double digit earnings growth, in line with expectations.

Following the trend we highlighted in December, industry data^*4 has continued to show a soft hotel market in the UK, with a divergence in performance between London and the regions. The market revpar in the regions has declined by around 3% in the quarter, in contrast to a more robust London market especially in the upper segments. Premier Inn has outperformed its competitive set, benefiting from our commitment to maintain our hotels to a consistent high standard. Our scale, strong balance sheet and good returns enable us to continue to expand in line with our plans and win share of the hotel market. Our restaurant business benefitted from better trading over the Christmas period, albeit against snow impacted comparatives, and we remain focused on strengthening our brand propositions.

Costa has delivered excellent results this year, with total sales increasing by 25%, driven by good like for like sales growth and record new store openings of 359 stores (306 net of closures). This includes 71 new stores in China bringing our presence there to 163 stores. We are approaching the first anniversary of the acquisition of Coffee Nation and the launch of Costa Express. We have been very pleased by the positive customer reaction and our growth plans for this business are ahead of our original expectations.

We have around 10,000 Premier Inn rooms in our committed pipeline, which together with Costa's growth plan means that we expect to create a further 10,000 jobs in the UK over the next 3 years, in addition to the 2,500 that we have created in 2011/12"

Trading highlights for the 50 weeks:

Hotels and Restaurants *⁵

·     Premier Inn increased total room nights sold by 7.2% to 11.7 million.

·     Room rate was up by 1.6% which, combined with occupancy up 0.4ppts to 76.3%, increased like for like revpar by 2.2% with growth across both midweek and the weekend.

·     Like for like revpar grew by 7.7% in London and 1.2% in the regions.

·     Restaurants delivered total covers growth of 3.9%.

·     3,640 new rooms and 11 restaurants opened and we are on track to have opened 4,000 new rooms and 12 restaurants in the UK by year end.

·     Rooms continue to be refurbished on a regular cycle and over the two financial years to February 2013 we plan to have invested around £70m refurbishing some 13,000 rooms.

Costa

·     Costa continued to deliver an excellent performance growing total system sales^*3 by 24.6% to £786 million within which franchise sales were up 19.3% to £320 million.

·     Like for like sales in UK equity stores were up 5.8% with transactions up 6.1%.

·     Costa has opened 359 new stores which includes 177 new stores in the UK and 182 new stores internationally. In India and China we have a total of 95 and 163 stores respectively.  

·     In the UK there are now 919 Costa Express units and we are proceeding with the rebranding of the remaining 253 Coffee Nation units.

Group

The Group's financial position remains strong following the refinancing of our facilities in November 2011 and the success of our second US private placement in September 2011.

Notes:

Site detail	4 March 2011	Opened	Closed/ transferred	16th February 2012
Premier Inn UK & Ireland	43,374	3,640		47,014
Premier Inn Int'l	921	385	10	1,296
Total Premier Inn (rooms)	44,295	4,025	10	48,310
Restaurants (sites)	379	11	4	386
Costa UK     Equity	736	93	13	816
Franchise	481	84	6	559
Total Costa UK (stores)	1,217	177	19	1,375
Costa Int'l   Equity  - Coffeeheaven	86	22	5	103
JV - China                   JV - Russia	95 19	71 1	3 7	163 13
Franchise	454	88	19	523
Total Costa Int'l (stores)	654	182	34	802
Total Costa (stores)	1,871	359	53	2,177
Costa Express / Coffee Nation Machines	877	345	50	1,172

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

*² Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment.  Post IFRIC 13 for the 50 weeks to 16^th February 2012 Premier Inn like for like sales would 0.1% lower and total sales 0.1% lower.

*³ Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment.  Post IFRIC 13 for the 50 weeks to 16^th February 2012 Costa like for like sales would be 0.5% higher, total sales 1.3% higher and total system sales 0.9% higher.

*⁴ STR Global

*⁵ UK & Ireland only

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 0800 694 0257 and enter Conference ID: 52281576

A recording of the conference call will be available until the 12th March 2012. To listen, dial 0800 953 1533 and enter the passcode 52281576#.  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]

Joanne Russell, 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. In the UK we serve over 11 million customers every month in around 2,000 outlets*.

Whitbread outlined in April 2011, growth milestones (to 2015/16) to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms by nearly 50% to at least 65,000, add 80-100 new Restaurants and to nearly double the size of Costa with global system sales of £1.3bn and 3,500 stores worldwide.

In the six months ended 1 September 2011, Whitbread PLC reported a 10.7% increase in Group revenue to £891.3 million and Underlying Profit before tax of £174.9 million up 15.2%.

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.

*excludes Costa Franchise stores and Costa Express

 

END

 

 

TSTTRMLTMBJTBIT