Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn and a range of branded food and beverage sites, has accepted offers for 51 of its restaurant sites for a total of £56m ($72.72m).
The move forms part of the company’s strategy to exit 126 restaurants and repurpose 112 others into hotel rooms, aligning with its Accelerating Growth Plan (AGP).
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It is not disclosed which sites have received offers.
In March 2024, reports emerged that Whitbread, the owner of food and beverage (F&B) brands such as Brewers Fayre and Beefeater, planned to sell some of its locations and convert others into hotel rooms.
The following month, it was confirmed that the company would divest 126 restaurants as part of its AGP, resulting in the loss of 1,500 jobs.
The company’s interim results for the first half of the fiscal year 2025 have revealed that the plans are now in progress.
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By GlobalDataWhitbread stated: “We have accepted offers on 51 sites for a total consideration of £56m, with construction already underway to build an integrated F&B offer at a number of these sites and with the first sites expected to complete before the end of the financial year. Working with our advisers, we remain confident in being able to exit the remaining sites over the next 18 months.”
The AGP plan aims to optimise the F&B offer to better meet guest expectations. Planning applications for more than a third of the proposed 3,500 hotel room extensions have been submitted.
Despite a 7% decrease in F&B sales during the 26 weeks to 29 August 2024, which was anticipated due to the restructuring of its branded restaurants, Whitbread has seen stronger performance in its integrated restaurants due to high hotel occupancy levels.
In early 2024, Whitbread withdrew from its 49% investment in the healthy café brand Pure, of which it had been part since 2016, to focus on its core hotel business.
