Back in April I observed that ‘from the perspective that Saga plc (SAGA) describes itself as “a specialist in the provision of products and services for people over 50”, before the end of this year I am going to be one of its potential customers’. I told it later in the article that it really should not bother contacting me…and, so far, it sensibly has not done so. The reality today is that if the (slightly) more mature fraternity want something relevant, the average bank, holiday company, investment company can offer plenty. And we have not even mentioned the bunch of pure-internet alternatives. That is why, despite an excitable AGM update this morning which has helped push the company’s shares up 5% as I write, the shares are still unchanged year-to-date.

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”?

Many of you have probably stayed in an InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) hotel. I am sure a bunch of you are fans of the Regent or Crowne Plaza options, but I am a bit more of a Holiday Inn sort of guy. As for the company’s shares, I have not owned them for years but, when I look at their performance over the last year, they are 10% or so below the c. 5000p share price average. How exciting (not).

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.

Another exciting day in the markets, although at least today they are up…until we see what the central banks on either side of the Atlantic have to say for themselves over the next 24 hours or so. All good fun (as always). Meanwhile two workable updates today from Whitbread (WTB) and WH Smith (SMWH)...

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?

Another busy Thursday during the global corporate earnings season. Three names are of particular interest to me today…

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?

A week into January and I see that the weekend press has plenty of stories about the European Central Bank executive who ‘warns green energy push will drive inflation higher’, as well as the UK’s former vaccines minister who said it would be ‘helpful’ to cut the self-isolation period to five days.  Otherwise there is the apparent hassle of the wealth of the top 1% is 230 times higher than the poorest 10%.  Such analytical excitement (not).  

Like the complete weirdo I am, I do like doing a bit of sector research now and again. I do find it strange that whilst fundamental caution towards fixed income markets still makes a lot of sense, technical (rather than fundamental) bullishness for equity markets seems to have become more important. Typically active management and fundamental investment rationales are akin to one another, as is passive management and technical investment preferences. And then I read that more investors now believe that the S&P 500 – by the end of the year – will not only hit a number of all-time highs above the level achieved in 2017 (62 all-time highs) but also the all-time high of 77 achieved in 1995. No doubt too many of such people are overly excited by Tesla’s market cap reaching $1 trillion and tripling this (or more!) by the end of the decade. As if. Anyhow, back onto stocks I really care about. Three names my pension fund owns have reported today and – very nicely – all are doing rather well (and I think there is more to come).

I read in today’s press that ‘British Telecom (BT.A) has picked the former chief executive of Royal Mail (RMG) and ITV (ITV) to be its new chairman…Adam Crozier is expected to resign as chairman of the online fashion retailer Asos (ASC)  to focus on the role, although he is tipped to stay on as chairman of Whitbread (WTB)’.  How exciting!  

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.

Obviously I am a complete sad-o at many levels, one of which includes my love of taking the family to stay at a Premier Inn Hotel. Sadly, taking a trip to a different part of the country has been slightly tricky in the last year for obvious reasons but hopefully it is all going to be a bit different in six months time or so. The update today from Premier Inn owner Whitbread plc (WTB) admitted to a few challenges but leaves me optimistic still on the shares, even if their move over the last six months has gone from near twenty quid a share to today’s level of over thirty-one quid a share.

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…

I talked a little bit about deals yesterday, noting that ‘the old mantra of “price is what you pay and value is what you get” is still hugely relevant. In terms of price or relative value then the UK market does rather stand out at the moment. Elsewhere, I even used a chart in a presentation recently that showed that UK equity performance was at a fifteen year relative performance low against even Eurozone equities. Kind of embarrassing!…

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…

‘Nothing exists in a vacuum’. This was drilled into me as a neophyte analyst and it is why I continue to spend a significant amount of my time thinking about macroeconomic issues and how they impact the risk environment for individual stocks…

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...

Three stories catch my eye in today's regulatory news crop. Personally I am surprised that the Whitbread (WTB) rights issue - which I loved up here a few weeks ago - take-up was only 91.4%...

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...

I have loved up Whitbread (WTB) shares many times on this website, most recently here  where I noted it was trying to do the right thing for their employees.  Friday's short regulatory update - which confirmed that the company was an 'eligible issuer under the UK Government's Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF)' also noted 'as at 16 April the business has accessible cash reserves of c.£400 million and access to £900 million of its existing committed Revolving Credit Facility (RCF)' which certainly gives them a bit of time and flexibility. 

Let's face it, nobody really knows but you do not need to be an investing genius to know that Sunday newspaper headlines about the lockdown persisting until June is not good news if you are an investor or an entrepreneur.  Yes, you can push out a bunch of mitigation tactics and - yes - governments and central banks are stepping up, but the longer this period of time goes on for, the harder it gets for everyone. 

Yet the one or two deaths it brought to Britons become headline news. Can you possibly imagine every flu death being treated in the same way? Meanwhile, there are signs of that China, the source of the outbreak, is seeing a drying up of cases. That’s surely likely to happen everywhere.

I read a good bit of investment advice the other day - yes, despite almost a quarter of a century as some kind of professional investor I am still learning. It noted that 'if you're a very rare trader with edge, you'll act according to your strategy...if you're one of the majority of traders with no edge, this volatility may be revealing'. Goodness I wish I had exhibited sufficient knowledge and accrued insight to have written that.  It is very true in my opinion.  

So hello to the first big corporate updates day of 2020. So much I could write about (and if tomorrow is a bit quiet, I might do a part two) but three names I wanted to share some thoughts on as I have mused on them on this website in recent months…

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…

I enjoy using the search function on this website because you can always learn something from articles written months or even years ago. Almost a year ago I wrote on international hotel chain InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) that 'the company changed its CEO last July. The new incumbent is clearly trying to forge a distinct direction rather than live just off the legacy of his highly successful predecessor. That can be a dangerous thing to do too at the wrong point of the economic cycle'. That all seems very true, but the reality is in the last year the share has gone up. However reality is not so different…

There's nothing like a thirty percent pop in a share price to make you feel like an investing genius...even if all this does is compress your loss on an individual share a little bit.  

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...

Lots of numbers and comments out today...

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.

Back in the day, I used to be an institutional fund manager and did go on a number of brokerage lunches at around this time of year. The essential underlying aim of these lunches did not change for years: a thank you for business given during the year...and a pitch or ten about stocks that could be bought (or sold) early the next year in order to keep that commission flow going (and from the broker's perspective hopefully building). It seemed to me that the ideas took a very simple form: buy the underperformers and sell the outperformers. Well who does not like a bargain or - indeed - to take profits? So from an akin premise - but with an added slice of cynicism (and no need to elicit your brokerage commission flows!) - what does a 'brokerage lunch list' throw up as interesting in December 2018 looking ahead into 2019?...

As I have noted before, it is probably a good thing that the UK economy is not based on my personal consumption habits, especially when the highlight of my annual 'pre-Christmas trip to the shops' was purchasing an advent calendar marked down from its original price by over 75%... A very cheap way to buy some good quality chocolates (and - naturally - to ascertain the quality level I had to consume days one to fifteen in one sitting). 

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.

I have never actually written about Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) but I note the shares are down over 7% as I write. The company - best known for its Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn brands - said in an update today that 'the fundamentals for our industry remain strong. We are confident in the outlook for the remainder of the year and in our ability to deliver industry-leading net rooms growth over the medium term'. And to show this optimism it even announced a $500 million special dividend, equivalent to 5% of the current market cap. Not too shabby for a share that already yields 2.5%. Fair enough and with Q3 YTD RevPAR (revenue per average room) up 2.7% at least the numbers are moving forward too. So why the big fall?

A pretty poor first trading week of September has got the press all flustered with talk of the FTSE 100 being at five-month lows.  Older stock market hands of course know that this is when it starts to become interesting, after all it is better to buy low and sell higher than the other way around. 

Hello, Share Markers. I admit it. The reason I bought into Whitebread (WTB) a year and half ago was to bag the shareholder perk of one night for the price of two at its Premier Inns. With it came money off at its various restaurants and a voucher for coffee at Costa.

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)…

It has been a busy last few weeks grappling with the global results season, so i had a couple of quieter days on Friday and Saturday and, at one point, found myself at a newish shopping centre half-an-hour or so from where I live.  I do not find the idea of retail therapy particularly exciting or refreshing but as I am in a minority of one on this...unto the breach and all that.  It was not long before i cheered up pointing out my perceptions on which retail outlet was doing well or badly based on footflow, the look of the store etc, etc.  I am not sure if my daughters were particularly interested in all this...

On a thin regulatory news day, two board member announcements catch the eye.  I have never written about internet clothing retailer ASOS (ASC) on this website before but i did once own the shares following a tip from a mate who liked the look of a small cap called 'As Seen on Screen'.  I remember feeling rather clever after making a very decent return after selling out at 10 pence...  Ah, the shortcomings of youth! 

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 read in today's Sunday Times  that:  'An activist hedge fund has opened fire on the boss of Mr Kipling cakes maker Premier Foods (PFD), accusing him of leading the company into a "zombie-like state" through "five years of failure" '

I concluded my last write-up on Premier Inn and Costa Coffee owner Whitbread (WTB) hoping for an event inspired by both activist shareholders on the company's ownership register and the new right-on Chairman Crozier who previously had set a fire below both ITV (ITV) and Royal Mail (RMG). Well today - finally – it delivered with the announcement that 'Whitbread will pursue a demerger of Costa, providing shareholders with investments in two distinct, focused and market-leading businesses'.

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.

If I told you that UK clothing retail behemoth Next (NXT) mentioned this morning that earnings per share for the current financial year were now estimated to be down between 3.1% and 10.9% you would probably not want to buy the share after muttering about the downbeat UK consumer, nobbled by a lack of real wage growth and a slumped Pound. Well you would be quite correct in not wanting to buy Next shares today...because with the stock up a cool 11% it is once again pushing close to the 50 quid a share level I hoped for as a share price target in my writings on the stock earlier in the year (for example HERE).

Hello Share Crunchers. We have a little saying in our family. ‘There’s always something…’ Meaning, however well things seem to be going, there is invariably a major snag to  contend with. 

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. 

Hello Share Thumpers.  The big hotel and catering set-up Whitbreads (WTB)  has had an encouraging write-up in my modest column before. If anything my enthusiasm has increased since then. The first three months of this year were promising  both for its hotels and for its Costas, the Italian- sounding, but not, chain of coffee houses, which seem to be springing up everywhere.

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.