Whitbread interim management statement
Strong revenue growth continues
Total sales increase by 14.0%
Whitbread PLC, the UK’s largest hotel and restaurant group, today reports its trading performance for the 39 weeks to 2nd December 2010.
Sales update (% change vs. prior year)
|
Q3 Sales for the 13 weeks to 2nd December 2010 |
Sales for the 39 weeks to 2nd December 2010
|
||
|
Like for like sales*¹ |
Total sales |
Like for like sales*¹ |
Total sales |
Premier Inn |
8.7% |
12.7% |
9.6% |
13.5% |
Restaurants |
1.5% |
1.3% |
3.3% |
3.5% |
Hotels and Restaurants |
5.9% |
8.2% |
7.0% |
9.3% |
Costa*² |
11.0% |
31.1% |
9.4% |
30.0% |
Total |
6.8% |
13.6% |
7.5% |
14.0% |
*¹ Premier Inn: UK and Ireland only. Costa and Restaurants: UK only.
*² Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment. For 39 weeks post the adjustment like for like sales would be 1.2% lower and total sales 1.3% lower.
Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:
"Whitbread is an excellent business which is continuing to perform well. We have leading brands with real competitive advantage and substantial growth opportunities. The positive momentum in our business gives us confidence that, despite tougher comparatives and an uncertain outlook for consumer spending, the outturn for the full year will be in line with market expectations for strong profit growth."
Trading highlights for the 39 weeks:
Hotels and Restaurants
Premier Inn like for like occupancy for the year to date increased to 80.0% and is expected to be around 77% for the full year (2009/10: 70.2%). Total room nights sold in the 39 weeks have risen by 14.8% to 8.9 million.
Premier Inn like for like revpar growth of 9.2% (from £40.01 to £43.70), outperformed the budget sector by 4.6 ppts.
Restaurants have delivered year to date total covers growth of 5.5%, with great value meal deals underpinning performance. Restaurants sales growth has slowed in the third quarter and has not been helped more recently by difficult weather conditions.
Outlet expansion continues. During 2010/11 Premier Inn plans to have opened 26 new hotels, 2,519 rooms and 9 new restaurants. We remain on target to have 55,000 rooms in the UK by the end of 2013/14.
Costa
Costa has maintained its excellent performance with total system sales up 33.5% to £486.1 million and total franchise system sales up 38.0% to £208.3 million. Despite the tougher comparatives, like for like growth in the UK has been strong and underpinned by year to date transaction growth of 9.8%.
During 2010/11 Costa plans to have opened around 300 new stores taking the total number of stores at the full year to c.1,200 in the UK and c. 650 internationally. Costa remains on target to grow the business to at least 3,000 stores by the end 2014/15.
Group
Our balance sheet is strong and remains underpinned by a significant freehold asset base.
We remain committed to growth and in 2010/11 will have created over 1,500 new jobs.
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