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Whitbread

WTBCF
48
Travel Lodging · Consumer Cyclical
Price
$31.09
+0.00 (+0.00%)
Market Cap
$5.20B
Exchange
Other OTC
Winston Score
48
Winston is serious
Mixed quality — meaningful strengths and weaknesses.

Share count falling — buybacks

−14.3% over 4y

The company has reduced its share count over this period, returning value to shareholders through buybacks.

Diluted shares outstanding: 202.9M (2022) → 173.9M (2026)

Whitbread is a British hospitality company that owns and operates Premier Inn, the largest hotel brand in the United Kingdom. Premier Inn offers budget-friendly rooms to leisure and business travelers across hundreds of locations. The company sold its Costa Coffee chain in 2019 to focus entirely on hotels.

Whitbread makes money by charging guests nightly room rates at its owned and leased hotel properties. It operates primarily in the UK, where it holds a dominant market position with over 85,000 rooms, and is actively expanding into Germany to build a second large market. The company's scale and brand recognition in the UK give it a cost advantage over smaller competitors, but its heavy reliance on a single brand and ongoing capital spending in Germany are key risks if economic conditions weaken or the German expansion takes longer than expected to turn profitable.

Winston Score History

Growth Profile

When traditional metrics don't capture the full picture, these are the signals growth stock investors use instead.

Revenue Growth

+2.1% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Slow revenue growth

EPS Growth

-112.6% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Earnings declining

R&D Spend

$0/ year

0.0% of revenue

Below sector average (4%)

Research and development spending

Insider Activity

4.1%ownership

Relatively low insider ownership

Cash Runway

~9 years

$289M cash & investments

Quarterly Free Cash Flow

↑ Burn rate improving

$289M cash & investments at current burn rate

Growth context

Whitbread is growing revenue at 2% year-over-year. The Winston Score measures business quality today — these growth metrics show what could matter tomorrow.

The Winston Score above measures business quality today. Growth stocks often score lower because they invest in the future rather than maximising current profits. These metrics show what matters most for evaluating that future.

Score breakdown

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Quality

Gross Margin
48.1%
Healthy — 48.1% gross margin
Operating Margin
16.8%
Healthy — 16.8% operating margin
ROCE
5.5%
Weak — 5.5% return on capital

ROIC between 5% and 15%. They earn 5 to 15 cents back per year on every dollar invested.

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Growth

Sales YoY
+3.7%
Slow sales growth (3.7% YoY)
EPS YoY
-54.8%
Earnings shrinking (-54.8% YoY)

Earnings per share down more than 10%. Either a bad year, or a real decline.

EPS Consistency
0/8 quarters
Earnings rarely grow — volatile business

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Cash Flow

Cash Conversion
536%
Turns 536% of profit into real cash
FCF Margin
3.3%
Thin free cash flow (3.3%)

FCF margin between 0% and 10%. Some cash from sales, but not a lot.

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Stability

Debt / Equity
0.36
Conservative — low debt load (0.36)
Interest Cover
2.21x
Tight — interest eats into profit (2.2x)

Interest coverage between 1 and 3. Profits cover interest, but with little room to spare.

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Valuation

P/E Ratio (TTM)
20.8x
Growth-priced — P/E 20.8

P/E above the market average. People are paying up for expected growth.

P/E vs Forward
+6.3
GROWING
Earnings expected to grow meaningfully — cheaper on forward P/E (20.8 → 14.4)

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Dividends

Dividend Yield
4.22%
Healthy income — 4.22% yield

Generous yield. Worth checking whether the payout is sustainable.

Dividend Growth
+22.2%
Dividend growing fast (22.2% YoY)

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