Some significant losses were chalked up by Whitbread in early trade on Thursday following the company’s publication of interim results. Revenues are down as a result of reduced food & beverage spend in the UK as the chain scales back restaurant operations, whilst a sluggish underlying market also took a toll. On a more positive note, H2 bookings were reported as being ahead of the same position a year ago and management are committed to returning £2bn in buybacks and dividends by FY30, whilst the new property pipeline continues to develop, too. The Whitbread share price was down 7% in early trade.
There was a third quarter sales update out from FTSE-100 listed chemicals company Croda this morning. This saw sales up 6.5% on a constant currency basis, cost savings measures remain on track and the full year outlook is unchanged. That growth comes despite what management admit is a challenging environment but this has given the market something to cheer. The Croda share price started strongly but was still trading more than 2% higher at 8.30am.
The serviced office provider Workspace saw some selling pressure in early trade following the company’s publication of a Q2 business update. Whilst this was largely as expected with occupancy declining and predominantly as a result of exiting a specific building in London, the underlying trend remained lower and asset disposals aren’t achieving great valuations either. Debt is nudging its way higher, too, and the Workspace share price sold off by almost 3% in early trade although some of those losses have since been recovered.
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