Hospitality giant Whitbread has reported record revenue but said some jobs at its F&B arm will be impacted as it looks to exit a number of locations.
The owner of Premier Inn and Beefeater said revenue grew 13 per cent to £2.9bn in the year ending February, missing analyst forecasts by just one mark.
During the year, the no-frills accommodation provider opened 2,253 UK rooms and closed 386 rooms, leading the firm to have 12 per cent of the market share in the hotel space.
In Germany, where the business has been expanding, total sales were up 62 per cent year-on-year.
Overall, profit before tax rose 36 per cent during the year to £561m.
Whitbread’s food and beverage arm, where the company is mulling a sale of around a third of its underperforming sites, grew seven per cent in the UK.
The company is now looking to optimise its food and beverage arm by converting 112 and exiting 126 branded restaurants to unlock 3,500 new room extensions.
Dominic Paul, Whitbread’s chief executive, said the transition will impact job roles at some of its sites
He said: “Against this backdrop, we are increasing our momentum to deliver long-term profitable growth. In addition to our strong commercial programme, we plan to optimise our F&B offer at a number of our sites to unlock up to 3,500 room extensions that will enhance the service for our hotel guests and deliver increased operational efficiencies.
“We recognise that our transition will impact some of our team members so we will be providing support throughout this process and we are committed to working hard to enable as many as possible of those affected to remain with us.”
“The short-term impact on our profit performance this year will be more than offset by an uplift from FY27 with further increases thereafter in both margins and returns as we open more of the new extensions.”
Whitbread raised its dividend by 26 per cent to increase in the final dividend per share to 62.9p.
