Hotel and restaurant group Whitbread has seen its Costa coffee and Premier Inn hotel brands boost its half-year pre-tax profits to 254.9m, an increase of 5.4% on the same period last year.
Alison Brittain joined Whitbread as chief executive designate on September 28th and is scheduled to succeed Andy Harrison as chief executive on December 7th.
Andy Harrison, chief executive, said: "Whitbread has once again delivered double digit revenue and underlying profit growth. Group total sales grew by 11.3% to £1.4 billion with good like for like sales growth of 3.6%. This drove underlying earnings per share up 14.0% and the Board has increased the interim dividend by 13.1%.
“Our two leading brands have delivered strong organic growth and continue to win market share. Premier Inn, the UK's favourite hotel chain, grew its total sales by 12.6%, combining revpar growth of 4.6% with an 8.0% increase in rooms available and maintaining strong occupancy of 83.7%. Costa, the UK's favourite coffee shop chain, delivered an excellent performance, with total sales growth of 16.2% and continued strong like for like sales growth of 4.4% in our UK equity stores. Restaurants made progress in a soft market with total sales growth of 1.2% and like for like sales up 0.1%.
“Trading momentum in the early weeks of the second half has been consistent with that seen across the first half. We remain on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.
“This year we plan to invest around £700 million in driving our organic growth and further improving the quality and consistency of our customer experience. We expect to open around 5,500 net new UK rooms and around 220 net new Costa stores worldwide. We continue to focus on driving long term organic growth, financed from our own resources and delivering a good return on capital to create substantial value for our shareholders."
