Recent poor weather meant a mixed performance for budget hotels, restaurants and coffee chain group Whitbread. Specifically, cold weather held back second-half restaurant sales, but helped boost demand for hot drinks at the Costa Coffee chain.
Whitbread's like-for-like sales grew by a solid 3.7 per cent in the year. And, despite a tough second half, the restaurant operation still grew like-for-like sales by 2.3 per cent for the year - to £506.3m. The Premier Inn hotel chain boosted total sales by 13.1 per cent, or 3.1 per cent on an underlying basis, to £853.8m. Chief executive Andy Harrison says Whitbread is on course to meet its target of increasing the number of Premier Inn rooms by 50 per cent by 2016 to 65,000. Overall, the hotels and restaurant division increased profit by 5.9 per cent to £313.1m. Meanwhile, the Costa Coffee operation opened a further 324 outlets and total sales here rose 24.1 per cent to £672.4m - although UK like-for-like sales still grew by 6.8 per cent. Costa's profit rose 29.3 per cent to £90.1m.
Broker Investec Securities expects adjusted pre-tax profit of £411.8m for 2014, giving adjusted EPS of 173.3p (from £356.5m and 150.5p in 2012).
WHITBREAD (WTB) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 2,550p | MARKET VALUE: | £4.6bn | |
| TOUCH: | 2,548-2,551p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 2,694p | LOW: 1,771p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.2% | PE RATIO: | 15 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 856p* | NET DEBT: | 30% | |
| Year to 28 Feb | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 1.33 | 199 | 53.0 | 36.6 |
| 2010 | 1.44 | 208 | 92.0 | 38.0 |
| 2011 | 1.60 | 271 | 127 | 44.5 |
| 2012 | 1.78 | 306 | 152 | 51.3 |
| 2013 | 2.03 | 355 | 171 | 57.4 |
| % change | +14 | +16 | +13 | +12 |
Ex-div: 15 May Payment: 12 Jul *Includes intangible assets of £2.75bn, or 1,533p a share | ||||
