Costa Coffee Expansion continues as new cafe bar due to open. Shopfitters are putting together the final finish to the corporate design which has proved so successful. The Whitbread -owned business plans to grow its UK store base to around 2,500 in 2020, up from 1,931. Costa’s UK sales rose in the last year, for instance, with growth in transactions per store. © Mar Photographics/Alamy Live News
Reuters: The boss of Costa Coffee and Premier Inn hotels operator Whitbread () on Tuesday announced plans to leave by February next year, as the company posted another surge in profits and stepped up its expansion targets. Whitbread's stock market value has grown from billion pounds ($ billion) to almost 10 billion pounds since Andy Harrison joined from easyJet as chief executive in September 2010, as it tapped demand from cost-conscious customers for affordable hotels and takeaway coffee. "I've been a chief executive of three different companies now ... and it's just time to do something that's a bit less demanding," said Harrison, who will become chairman of British homewares retailer Dunelm () on July 7. Britain's biggest hotel and coffee shop operator said underlying pretax profit for the year to Feb. 26 was million pounds, up percent on a year ago and ahead of analysts' average forecast of million. Total revenues rose percent to billion pounds, with sales at UK Costa stores open over a year up 6 percent and up percent on the same basis at Premier Inn. To further capitalise on demand, Whitbread increased its expansion targets for both businesses, with greater exposure in London a key focus for Premier Inn and overseas sales at Costa expected to grow from a quarter to a third of total sales.
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