Four months ago, I noted that InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) “is still excited about the future hotel market…but it should not expect me to book a luxury global Regent or Crowne Plaza room in 2023!”. Famously, I am much more of a Premier Inn/Whitbread (WTB) sort of guy. Interestingly, as an investor, both year-to-date and over the last six months you would have made more money via a holding in the latter too!

As I noted most recently last week, I am a big personal fan of Whitbread plc (WTB) and its Premier Inn brand. I even contributed a few quid to its profitability numbers over recent months. How excited am I then about its “performance driven by our ‘investing to win’ strategy over the last two years”, “well-placed to capitalise on the strong market recovery in the UK and Germany”, and “adjusted profit before tax of £271.9m, including £24.9m losses in Germany”?

Hello Share Pickers. You don’t hear much about shareholder perks these days. But one company still handing out discounts to its investors is Whitbread (WTB). Staying at one of its Premier Inns, they and the family get a free breakfast. Which isn’t, of course, a good reason to buy the shares.

How are your domestic holiday plans for this year?  Given all the airport hassles, what could be nicer than a holiday in the (no doubt rainy) UK?  I am sure Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB) would completely agree with such thoughts. So, does that make the stock cheap?

When I last looked, Whitbread (WTB) shares were in the top ten of my personal pension fund positions. I have been a fan at various levels for years, having enjoyed the share price bump after Coca-Cola purchased the company’s Costa unit at a decent multiple to take a decent profit, and then invested it back into the share when the Premier Inn owner decided to raise some money back during the 2020 COVID-19 uncertainties. I may not have made it one of my formal two tips of the year during the Christmas holidays, but I am still hopeful of a return to a c. 40 quid share price as I discussed back in June last year. So what do I make of its Q3 update today?

Naturally you have to think carefully about every share in the travel sector at the moment. Earlier this week I wrote why I thought On The Beach (OTB) was wholly uninvestable HERE. By contrast I still own shares in Carnival (CCL) and, as I talked about last month HERE, I will even get back to making a bit of profit on my holding if the shares go up another couple of quid and there was an announcement today that its ‘ultra-luxury cruise line’ brand Seabourn would depart for both the Greek Isles and the Southern Caribbean next month. Certainly there is a bunch of older (and richer) people who look forward to their next trip soon. My top sector holding in the travel and related space though is Whitbread (WTB).

Whitbread (WTB) is a share I have owned successfully for a while and noted back in January here that I still targeted a 4000 pence share price.  Whilst the shares have moved up from 3050 pence in early January, today they are down 4% or so at 3260 pence.  Still workable but why has the Premier Inn, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Table Table owner fallen back a couple of quid plus since the high of the year? 

Hello, Share Poolers.  This old punter has Whitbread shares.  It owns the Premier Inn, so must have suffered mightily during the lockdowns. As they’re gradually clawing back some of their old values, I won’t sell them. But once the present rising trend gives way to any weakness, I’ll probably let go. Nor will I buy any shares in the hospitality game probably for some time.

In the wider scheme of things, no huge surprises in today’s first half numbers from Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB). You will recall my history with this one – I took big profits thanks to the largesse of Coca-Cola in buying Costa at a material premium (how’s that one working out I wonder?), but then backed the rights issue and even  last time  observed I would increase my stake even further at twenty quid a share. I did not get that opportunity but market moves and shifts might still give me that opportunity as pandemic angst continues. Today’s update builds on the bare bones of the trading update I wrote up a month or so ago at the link above…

Back in July I observed why worrying about an 80% like-for-like revenue decline at Premier Inn owner Whitbread (WTB) was not an investment-stopping concern for me. I even concluded that, buoyed by the monies raised from this year’s rights issue, ‘I retain my decent sized position and ceteris paribus would add more at around twenty quid’. We will come back to that latter observation later. But today’s first half trading update (for the six months to the end of August) does show a little improvement…

Regular readers will recall I cheered Coca-Cola's largesse in splurging on the Costa Coffee chain from Whitbread (WTB) and hence when the company wanted some of those distributed returns back a month or two ago to invest into its Premier Inn hotel range, I was supportive – observing that 'a crisis is an opportunity and with many hotels struggling to survive, Whitbread pounds (or in Germany euros) can go a long way in terms of locations'. And it certainly is a general crisis...

Normally a preliminary results announcement would be of the uppermost interest when thinking about the daily newsflow grind around a FTSE-100 company. However, for Whitbread (WTB) today its own preliminary update is superseded by a rights issue announcement from the owner/operator of the Premier Inn franchise. A rights issue! In the current era of placings, it felt like a blast from the past to have a table showing the indicative timing of events...

Hello, Share Diggers. When I was looking for a hotel in the Smoke last month, I was shocked that Premier Inn, a so-called budget hotel, wanted £360 for two nights, a huge increase on my room last year. I bet they’re not charging that now. This brings me no joy, especially as this family has shares in Whitbread (WTB) which owns Premier.

I am playing a bit of catch-up today but my first port of call has to be yesterday's interim numbers from the Premier Inn and Beefeater owner Whitbread (WTB), which I have loved-up many times on these pages. Helpfully it sold off Costa for a pretty penny but the share has been a bit desultory year-to-date, including failing a couple of times at the c. fifty quid level. In a way I am almost surprised it did not fall more yesterday…

A bit of a 'same old, same old' feeling to today's crop of regulatory news statements and Whitbread (WTB) is indicative of this. I said back in February that the owner of Premier Inn had a plan – and I think that remains the case. Or as it put it…

Hello, Share Clangers. When I’m away on business, which is rather too often for my liking, I prefer to stay in Premier Inns. My reason is not that I think they’re great but that because, as a shareholder, I nab two nights for one at weekends. However, I don't hold the shares for this handy perk, but because the room prices are comparatively cheap – which is what stingy customers want these days...

Like the investment sad-o that I am, I spent a good while yesterday afternoon pacing through the one hundred plus slides that formed the Whitbread (WTB) capital markets day presentation. Recall - as I have written up at length before - that the company is now all about the Premier Inn asset after Coca-Cola's largesse in buying Costa Coffee for a pretty sum. Right at the back of the presentation document Whitbread noted that it would return over £2.5 billion of the £3.9 billion proceeds back to investors – which is not a bad slice of the cake. Meanwhile industrial and pension debts/deficits get lowered further...and the company can also easily finance its expansion plan…

Hello Share Treaters. As a customer of Premier Inn hotels and not a coffee drinker in Costas, I was pleased Whitbread (WTB) has just sold its coffee places to Coca-Cola this month. Costa coffee shops always look a bit bland to me with few of the quirky attractions offered by independent purveyors. While Premier Inn hotel rooms are very reasonable and convenient in city centres. Plus, if you are a shareholder, you get two nights for the price of one at weekends.

As I described a couple of months ago HERE, one of my investing highlights of 2018 has been the bid by the soda behemoth Coca-Cola for the Costa Coffee business of Whitbread (WTB). This left the FTSE-100 name with one major asset, its hotels business Premier Inn...and a bunch of speculation about whether it would look to encourage bids for this asset too...or use some of its windfall to accelerate the growth of the value-centric hotel brand.

Back in the day, the last business day of the month was always a rather important moment for me because it would determine whether I was a hero or a zero in the institutional investor world I used to belong to. Believe me, in the emails and related that followed, the whole investment firm would know whether your Fund had done well or badly. Of course the way to build performance was one month at a time, so a 'good close' to the month was immensely useful. If I was still in that world - and invested akin to my thoughts today - then I would have a big beaming smile on my face, thanks to the news update from my old mucker Whitbread (WTB) whose shares I have been continuously loving up on this website (most recently HERE)…

A couple of larger cap favs of mine to write about today following new newsflow. I see that the ITV (ITV) COO/CFO has decided to exit into the night and retire. He has been at the company for a decade and no doubt he has made a pretty penny for his efforts. I do not think there is any particular fire here and he will hang around until a successor has been appointed. However my instinct is that there is another story here.

I seem to have written about one of my 2017 'tips of the year' Whitbread (WTB) more in 2018 than I did during its twelve months in the sun. A couple of weeks ago I observed that the appointment of the new Chairman, combined with an activist shareholder on the books could well tip the company over the edge in terms of thinking about the value creation option of splitting its two largest and most successful franchises Costa Coffee and Premier Inn. I also mused that the market reaction to this would push the shares back to trading at £50+.

I have already given my excuses concerning my 2017 tip of the year Whitbread (WTB), which only went dully up last year. I concluded in that piece that I would 'hold on' and I am. Today's announcement of a change at the top of the company's management structure reiterates such a position.

Whitbread (WTB) has had an up-and-down year since my last update on the stock - HERE. The Costa and Premier Inn operator unsurprisingly has been impacted by the changes in perception towards the strength (or not) of the UK consumer and this has pushed the shares between a £36 and £42 range this year. Today's interim results have again pushed the shares towards the lower end of this range despite the company reiterating its hopes for the full year.

Is the UK consumer completely shot? For the last year we have had a waxing and waning in views from 'the experts' on this. The reality is that it depends who you talk to but, biggest picture, what is needed is a great product, attractive marketing and a base underlying need. I last chatted through the Whitbread (WTB) investment case in late January, where I concluded that the stock was still worth a punt...

Hello Share Samplers. I’m quite excited about this. This family has now received its Whitbread (WTB) shareholder’s discount card. A good investment that, as I’ve only held the share a few weeks and am already up by 12%. And the added perk is really quite good, as shareholder discounts go.

First trading update of my (long) tip of the year for 2017 and the shares are down 4%. Worried? Of course not…the Whitbread (WTB) share price is still nicely above where I recommended it…and frankly we are not even a month into the year. The magnitude of the move today reflects the (to use a wonderful phrase poached from a fellow market observer) wildebeest financial market backdrop we have at the moment…

Hello Share Cravers. Whitbread (WTB) is a name which still conjures up old-fashioned pubs and breweries. Not necessarily a great business to be in that, as pubs seem to close down all over the shop.

If you want to buy just one new single stock in the FTSE-100 for 2017 you need to look at the perceived Brexit losers given, over the course of the next 12 months, Brexit apocalypse will move further away via delays and position dilution.  Forget big overseas earners as this backdrop will crimp their translated back into Sterling earnings so it has to be more domestic plays.  And filtering for market leadership, strong balance sheet and continued growth hopes I end up with Whitbread (WTB) the owner of the Costa Coffee and Premier Inn franchises. 

I am still in the Motorway service station at the Premier Inn but head to London shortly. For tonight it is myself and the old bank robber Brokerman Dan against Mkango Resources (MKA). Bring it on bitchez! In this podcast I also look at Aquatic Foods (AFG), NAHL (NAH), Slater & Gordon (SGH), Igas (IGAS), Redcentric (RCN) and MXC Capital (MXCP)

Yes i am still in the Motorway Service Station Premier Inn and had a shocking experience this morning. In this podcast I look at the seven stages of grief and compare Nigel Wray (aka Britain's Buffett) with moron investors in the fraud Cloudtag (CTAG), especially those on the LSE Asylum. The promo code to get 20 free tickets to UK INvestor Show as mentioned with reference to the Wray golden share is NOVUKSP

Hello Share Packers. Normally I stay clear of hotel firms. The main reason is that I can’t see much reason for people to be staying at British towns and cities for any good reason. I mean, you can understand people wanting to pay visits to London, Edinburgh or York, say. But where is the necessity to stay in Birkenhead, Scunthorpe or Milton Keynes? In fact, most places in the UK don’t deserve to be visited at all. (Write your complaints in the comments box.) TW Note: anywhere North of Kenilworth is on that list for starters. 

Hello Share Trillers. When I think of that well-known British name Whitbread (WTB), I think of pubs and beer. As I am a red wine man, this does not always thrill me.