LONDON: Britain's biggest hotel and coffee shop operator Whitbread Plc reported a higher-than-expected first-half pretax profit and ramped up its interim dividend by over 50 percent.
Whitbread, which operates the Premier Inn and Costa Coffee chains, said underlying pretax profit rose by 15.2 percent to 174.9 million pounds ($276 million) in the six months to Sept. 1 against a consensus forecast of 167 million, according to a company-supplied poll of eight analysts.
The company, which also owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub-restaurant chains, said it would pay an interim dividend of 17.5 pence per share, up from 11.25p last year and ahead of the consensus forecast of 16.5p.
"This is a good set of results demonstrating the strength of our brands in tough market conditions," Chairman Anthony Habgood said on Tuesday.
"The strong first-half performances of our two main growth engines, Premier Inn and Costa, give us confidence to continue to expand the business."
Underlying profit at the hotel and restaurant business was up 8.5 percent to 167.1 million pounds, while Costa's underlying profit increased by 42 percent to 27.8 million.
Premier Inn has performed strongly through the economic downturn, benefiting from business customers trading down from four-star and five-star hotels and a 29 pounds-per-room offer wooing leisure customers in off-peak periods.
Costa has also fared well, being seen as an affordable luxury by many consumers.
Whitbread said it was on track to achieve its five-year targets to expand Premier Inn by 65,000 rooms and open 3,500 Costa stores worldwide.
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