{"id":60515,"date":"2026-05-05T17:58:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T17:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/60515\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T17:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T17:58:21","slug":"whitbread-targets-cut-by-ubs-as-hotelier-plays-long-game-when-many-wanted-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/60515\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitbread targets cut by UBS as hotelier ‘plays long game when many wanted short’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Whitbread Whitbread targets cut by UBS as hotelier ‘plays long game when many wanted short’ Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock <\/p>\n

Whitbread PLC’s (LSE:WTB)<\/a>\u00a0new strategy has drawn a cautious response from UBS, which warned that the hotels group is \u201cplaying the long game when investors may want the short game\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Premier Inn owner last week set out a new five-year strategy<\/a>, which rejected a range of more aggressive suggestions, including a full sale and leaseback of its hotel estate, going asset-light, or selling its German business.<\/p>\n

Besides ramping up in sale-and-leaseback activity, analysts said\u00a0the new plan was “catalyst lite for those investors that were expecting greater near term financial engineering.”<\/p>\n

UBS slashed its price target to 2,975p from 3,575p, retaining a ‘buy’ rating on shares that have fallen around 10% this year and were trading at 2,296p on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The bank now forecasts pre-tax profit of \u00a3390 million for the year to February 2027, down from a previous estimate of \u00a3442 million, with earnings per share cut by 15%.<\/p>\n

UBS also identified around \u00a355 million of unexpected headwinds for 2027, including a \u00a340 million drag from Whitbread’s ‘accelerating growth plan’ to restructure its food and beverage estate,\u00a0a \u00a310 million hit from Germany, and a \u00a35 million impact from the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n

Despite the cuts, UBS said Premier Inn remained the UK’s dominant budget hotel brand and saw scope for continued market share gains as independent rivals face mounting cost pressures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whitbread targets cut by UBS as hotelier ‘plays long game when many wanted short’ Proactive uses images sourced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[26081,223,26079],"class_list":{"0":"post-60515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ubs","8":"tag-premier-inn","9":"tag-ubs","10":"tag-whitbread"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116523270464091672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}