Whitbread also said it will reduce its chain of restaurants by more than 200 - and instead will build more hotel rooms as part of a major business overhaul
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Premier Inn owner Whitbread has announced plans to axe around 1,500 UK jobs while dramatically scaling back the number of restaurants across its business.
The hospitality firm said it will reduce its chain of restaurants by more than 200 - instead, the company will focus on building more hotel rooms. Whitbread will covert 112 of its restaurants into new hotel rooms, while a further 126 less profitable sites will be sold. Whitbread has already agreed to sell 21 of these restaurants for £28million.
These restaurants will remain open as usual until they are sold - but the company has not yet revealed which brands have been earmarked for closure. The restaurant firms owned by Whitbread include Brewers Fayre, Beefeater, Bar+Block, Cookhouse Pub, Hub, Thyme, Table Table and Whitbread Inns. Whitbread currently has a total UK workforce of 37,000 people.
The job cuts are still subject to consultation at this stage, but Whitbread said it will look to offer alternative roles to some of those affected by the proposals. Whitbread said its plan - which will add more than 3,500 hotel rooms across its estate - could increase profits before tax by as much as £90million by 2029. It comes despite the business reporting a rise in its overall pre-tax profit by 21% to £452million for the year ending February 29.
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Dominic Paul, Whitbread Chief Executive, said: “We recognise that our transition will impact some of our team members so we will be providing support throughout this process and we are committed to working hard to enable as many as possible of those affected to remain with us. The short-term impact on our profit performance this year will be more than offset by an uplift from FY27 with further increases thereafter in both margins and returns as we open more of the new extensions.”