| Company name | Whitbread PLC |
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| Company logo | |
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| Company type | Public limited company() |
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| Foundation | 1742 |
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| Location | Dunstable, United Kingdom |
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| Key people | Anthony Habgood, (Chairman)Alan Parker, (CEO) |
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| Area served | China, Dubai, Europe, India, Republic of Ireland, Russia, United Kingdom |
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| Industry | Leisure Services and Hospitality |
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| Products | Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Costa Coffee, Premier Inn, Table Table, Taybarns |
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| Revenue | £1,334.6 million (2009) |
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| Operating income | £227.2 million (2009) |
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| Subsid | March Industries |
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| Homepage | www.whitbread.co.uk |
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Whitbread PLC () is a global
hotel,
coffee shop and
restaurant company headquartered in
Dunstable,
United Kingdom. Its largest division is
Premier Inn, which is the largest hotel brand in the UK with around 580 hotels and over 40,000 rooms. In 1750 Samuel Whitbread moved his brewing operations to premises in Chiswell Street on the eastern rim of Georgian
London, establishing the first purpose-built mass-production brewery in Britain.
After a long history of brewing, the company, now known as Whitbread Group Plc, decided in 2001 to sell all its breweries and brewing interests (Whitbread Beer Company) to Interbrew, now known as InBev.
The Whitbread & Co brewery building at 52 Chiswell Street, London still survives, but beer was last brewed there in 1976
In 2005 it moved its core operations from CityPoint in central London to Oakley House in Luton, and then in 2006 to larger offices at Whitbread Court in Dunstable (previously used by the now defunct Whitbread Restaurants Company) in a bid to reduce costs.
In 2006 it went on to sell 239 of its 271 Beefeater sites to Mitchells & Butlers.
In January 2010, Whitbread revealed its new corporate logo, losing the "welcome with a smile" strapline and introducing a modern logo with an "Eat, Sleep and Drink" tagline.
Operations
Whitbread's brands include the following:
Premier Inn
Premier Inn is the UK's largest hotel chain, with over 600 hotels in the United Kingdom, plus Premier Inns in
Republic of Ireland and, from April 2008, in
Dubai.Premier Inn recently launched a new television advertising campaign after its re-launch from "Premier Travel Inn", featuring an advert starring
Lenny Henry.
Table Table
Table Table is a UK restaurant brand. They started as converted Brewers Fayre restaurants, usually next to a Premier Inn. The brand, launched in May 2008, has 105 sites in the UK. More recent sites such as Oswestry, Kendal and Cambridge have been purpose built.
Beefeater
Beefeater was launched in 1974 and serves millions of guests each year. The chain underwent a huge revamp in the early 2000s and has just launched a new advertising campaign in the Central UK region. Beefeater has 131 houses across the UK; most have a Premier Inn hotel located next door.
Brewers Fayre
Brewers Fayre is a pub-restaurant brand. The pubs are designed to look and feel like traditional local pubs but with a particularly strong family presence. The division is currently in the process of a regeneration. This will see the demise of the Brewers Fayre brand in favour of TableTable.
Brewers Fayre will keep on going, the expansion of Table Table has been stopped
Taybarns
Taybarns is an all-you-can-eat buffet-style restaurant being created at some former Brewers Fayre sites (e.g.:
Swansea). Other sites have opened in Coventry, South Shields, Wigan, Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Costa Coffee
There are more than 1000 outlets worldwide. The chain also operates in the
Middle East,
Pakistan and
India through
franchise partners, and in
China through a joint venture agreement. Whitbread plans for more Costa outlets to be operated outside the UK than in its home market by 2012.
Former brands
The following are former brands:
Britvic, a large UK manufacturer of soft drinks, producing brands such as J2O, Robinson's and Tango as well as Pepsi in the UK and Ireland.
Whitbread Inns, standalone pubs with no restaurant attached.
Marriott hotels and clubs in the UK, sold to brand owner Marriott Corporation.
TGI Friday's, a chain of franchised American theme restaurants, sold to brand owner. (see below)
Pizza Hut UK, sold to brand owner Yum!.
David Lloyd Leisure health clubs sold to Versailles Bidco Limited. (see below)
Hogshead, a group of town-centre pubs, similar to Wetherspoons, became part of the Laurel Pub Company
Threshers, a chain of off licences.
TGI Friday's
Whitbread originally held the UK franchise rights to the American restaurant chain
TGI Friday's. The restaurants are known for their "over the top" American style and are popular with teenagers for birthday parties. It is also noted for its cocktails including a top-selling
Long Island Iced Tea. The Whitbread website claims: "The highly popular Long Island Iced Tea cocktail alone accounts for more than 1.5 million of 34 million cocktails served in the UK since Whitbread first brought the brand to the UK in 1986".
The chain was ranked 15th overall in the Financial Times annual Best Workplace report, and ranked fourth as the most fun place to work in the UK.
On 17 January 2007 Whitbread announced that the franchise rights for TGI Friday's were being sold to a joint venture between Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc and ABN AMRO Capital for £70.4m.
David Lloyd Leisure
Whitbread ran more than 50
David Lloyd Leisure (DLL) clubs in the UK and Ireland with a further number in
Spain, the
Netherlands and
Belgium. DLL is Britain's biggest tennis operator and manages more than 500 tennis courts. On 4 July 2007, Whitbread announced that it had conditionally agreed to sell the David Lloyd Leisure chain to Versailles Bidco Limited for £925 million. Whitbread will initially use the proceeds from its sale to pay off debt.
Sponsorship
In 1971, the company launched the
Whitbread Literary Awards, but in 2005 Whitbread changed its sponsorship strategy to support the
Costa Coffee brand, as the Whitbread name was no longer a customer-facing brand, merely a holding company for a series of other brands: hence the new name "Costa Book Awards".
References
External links
Whitbread plc website
the Brewery - London events venue
Yahoo profile
Funding Universe History of Whitbread PLC
Category:Defunct brewery companies of the United Kingdom
Category:Catering and food service companies of the United Kingdom
Category:Hotel and leisure companies of the United Kingdom
Category:Companies based in Bedfordshire
Category:Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
Category:Companies established in 1742
Category:Brewing in London
Category:Restaurant groups in the United Kingdom
