Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 1024V

Whitbread PLC

10 December 2013

 



WHITBREAD INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

Double digit sales growth  

On track to deliver full year results in line with expectations

  

Whitbread PLC, today reports its trading performance to 28th November 2013.

Sales update (% change vs. prior year)

	Sales for the 13 weeks to 28th November 2013		Sales for the 39 weeks to    28th November 2013
	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales	Like for like sales*¹	Total sales
Premier Inn	5.4%	13.7%	4.0%	12.9%
Restaurants	1.8%	4.4%	0.6%	3.2%
Hotels and Restaurants	4.1%	10.5%	2.7%	9.4%
Costa	4.9%	20.4%	5.3%	20.8%
Total	4.3%	13.8%	3.3%	13.0%

Andy Harrison, Chief Executive of Whitbread comments:

"Whitbread has delivered another strong quarter, with total sales up 13.8% and like for like sales up 4.3%, driven by the strength of Premier Inn and Costa and an improved performance from Restaurants. This keeps us on track to deliver full year results in line with expectations.

For the year to date, we have grown our total sales by 13.0%, driven primarily by the continuing expansion of our Premier Inn and Costa networks. Premier Inn's total sales have grown by 12.9%, with the opening this year of 22 new hotels with 2,718 new rooms, including two new international hotels. Costa's total sales have grown by 20.8% with the opening of 246 net new stores worldwide, including 133 in the UK and 54 in China, bringing our total number of stores to 2,773.

Our network expansion, as we deliver our growth milestones, combined with a strong focus on returns should continue to generate substantial shareholder value and create many new jobs and career opportunities for our teams."

Trading highlights:

Hotels and Restaurants

·     Premier Inn has continued to win market share and, for the 39 weeks, grew total sales by 12.9%, total revpar^*2 by 4.0% and total room nights sold by 10.0% to 11.8 million.

·     During the quarter, Premier Inn grew total sales by 13.7%, with a 7.3% increase in the total number of rooms available^*3 and like for like sales growth of 5.4%. Total revpar^*2 grew by 6.5%.

·     In a strong London market, we grew total sales by 16.3% in the quarter with a 10.1% increase in the number of rooms available.  Total revpar grew by 7.6% and our like for like revpar grew by 7.4% with occupancy at 90.0%. The Midscale and Economy London competitive set*⁴ grew total revpar by 10.6%.

·     In the UK regions, our total sales grew by 13.5%, during the quarter, with a 6.9% increase in the number of rooms available.  Total revpar was up 5.9% and our like for like revpar grew by 5.2% with occupancy up 1.2% pts to 81.7%. The Midscale and Economy regional competitive set*⁴ grew total revpar by 9.9%, benefitting from weaker comparatives last year.

·     Although the restaurant market continues to be challenging, particularly outside of London, our Restaurants business improved its performance and outperformed its competitive set*⁵, with like for like sales growth of 1.8% in the quarter and an increase in covers of 0.7%.

·     In the UK we opened 2,309 new rooms across 20 hotels and six joint site restaurants in the first 39 weeks. For the full year we plan to open around 3,500 new rooms. This is slightly less than originally anticipated including a short delay in the opening of a large Central London Premier Inn, which will now open in early 2014/15. Our new UK hotel pipeline remains strong at around 10,500 rooms, with approximately 4,500 expected to be open in 2014/15. Our pipeline includes 1,000 rooms for our new brand, hub by Premier Inn, with the first hotel due to open in St Martin's Lane in the second half of 2014.

Costa

·     Costa continued to perform strongly growing total system sales in the 39 weeks by 19.4% to £882.0 million. Within this franchise sales were up 17.3% to £347.0 million.

·     UK Retail system sales grew by 17.2% to £473.5 million, with equity stores delivering like for like sales growth of 5.3%.

·     Costa Enterprises grew system sales to £215.6 million, up 23.1%.

·     Costa EMEI grew system sales by 12.1% to £141.0 million. The Middle East continued to deliver a solid performance while trading in Central and Southern Europe remained difficult. We have opened two new equity stores in Paris, building on the two franchised stores in France.

·     Costa Asia system sales grew by 53.5% to £51.9 million with slightly improved like for like sales growth in China for the quarter.  Across Asia we opened 65 net new stores in the 39 week period and we continue to invest in infrastructure to support our rollout strategy.

·     We plan to open around 300 net new stores worldwide and to install around 850 Costa Express units in the full year.

Group

·     The strong financial position of the group remains unchanged.

Notes:

Site detail		28th February 2013	Opened	Closed / Transferred	28th November 2013
Premier Inn UK		51,671	2,309	(66)	53,914
Premier Inn Int'l		1,296	409	(2)	1,703
Total Premier Inn (rooms)		52,967	2,718	(68)	55,617
Restaurants (sites)		397	6	(3)	400
Costa Retail	Equity	920	88	(17)	991
	Franchise	324	46	(1)	369
Costa Enterprises		334	18	(1)	351
Total Costa UK Stores (Retail + Enterprise)		1,578	152	(19)	1,711
Costa EMEI		692	80	(32)	740
Costa Asia		257	76	(11)	322
Total Costa (stores)		2,527	308	(62)	2,773
Costa Express Machines		2,560	973	(164)	3,369
Total Equity		1,048	99	(26)	1,121
Total JV		253	65	(11)	307
Total Franchise		1,226	144	(25)	1,345

*¹ Like for like sales stated Pre IFRIC 13 adjustment for Premier Inn - UK and Ireland, Costa and Restaurants - UK. Post IFRIC 13 for the 39 weeks to 28th November 2013 Premier Inn like for like sales would be 0.1% lower and total sales 0.1% lower.  Restaurant like for like sales would be the same and total sales 0.1% higher.  Costa like for like sales would be 0.3% lower, total sales 0.2% lower and total system sales 0.1% lower.

*² UK & Ireland only on a post IFRIC basis.

*³ UK & Ireland only.

^*4 Hotel market performance data collected by STR Global for the UK Midscale and Economy segment comprising of on average 115,000 daily participants.  

*⁵ Coffer Peach Tracker outside of the M25

Conference call for analysts and investors

Andy Harrison and Nicholas Cadbury will be available for a conference call at 8.00am today.  To participate, dial 0800 694 0257 and enter Conference ID: 99587071

For international participants dial [phone]

A recording of the conference call will be available until the 24th December 2013.  To listen, dial 08717 000 145 and enter the passcode 99587071.  International [phone].

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

Nicholas Cadbury, 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 PLCis the owner of the UK's favourite hotel chain, Premier Inn and the UK's favourite coffee shop, Costa as well as restaurant brands, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Taybarns.

Whitbread PLC employs 43,000 people in over 2,000* outlets across the UK, with its well-loved brands making every day experiences special for over 22 million UK customers every month.

Whitbread has outlined growth milestones for 2016 and 2018.  The 2018 milestones are to increase the number of Premier Inn UK rooms to around 75,000 and to double the size of Costa with global system sales of £2bn.

In the year ended 28 February 2013, Whitbread PLC reported a 14.2% increase in Group Revenue to £2,030 million and Underlying Profit before tax of £356.5 million up 11.4%.

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

 

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