Don’t expect Alison Brittain to sit back and enjoy the plaudits just because the ink has dried on the £2.5 billion cheque that the boss of Whitbread has written to shareholders.
Whitbread investors were yesterday celebrating the completion of a multibillion-pound tender offer for the hotel group’s equity after last year’s disposal of the Costa Coffee chain for £3.9 billion. However, plenty of pressures remain for the Premier Inn owner and its highly regarded chief executive. The attentions of the leisure group’s investors move swiftly to the success, or otherwise, of the group’s next phase.
Whitbread was founded as a brewery in 1742, a British operation that it owned until 2000. During the course of its history the company acquired and later auctioned off a