What’s life after Costa going to be like for Whitbread? Shareholders cheerfully gave the nod to the £3.9 billion sale of the booming chain of high street cafés to Coca-Cola yesterday, rubbing their hands gleefully at the prospect of healthy pay day.
The sale leaves Whitbread the owner of about 785 Premier Inn budget hotels, plus 19 hotels it has acquired in Germany and restaurant brands, including roughly 140 Beefeater steak houses and 165 Brewers Fayre family pubs. Essentially, it’s now a much smaller company with pots of money to play with.
It’s going to be interesting for Alison Brittain, the former banker who as chief executive orchestrated the Costa Coffee sale (with a little help from Elliott Advisors and Sachem Head, the activist investors).