WHITBREAD
Forecast Costa sales by 2018 £2.5bn
As Andy Harrison, the chief executive of Whitbread, admits August is a funny month, led astray by the weather and holiday patterns. There is already evidence, from Merlin Entertainments, owner of Madame Tussauds and the London Dungeon, that the low euro and the economic recovery is tempting Brits to go abroad while making the capital less attractive to continental visitors.
Sales across the group that month, taking in Premier Inns and Costa coffee, rose by just short of 1 per cent, against an exceptional performance of 8.8 per cent last year. The second-quarter performance for the two businesses therefore lagged the first quarter and was a little below some City expectations. Pub restaurants, most of them situated next