Whitbread secures majority take-up for £1bn rights issue

Premier Inn operator Whitbread has received 91.4% take-up for a heavily discounted £1bn rights issue. This means it has raised around £922m in total. The issue was priced at 1,500p per share. Whitbread said JP Morgan Cazenove and Morgan Stanley, its joint global coordinators, will use “reasonable endeavours” to find buyers for the remaining 5.8m shares. Both will purchase these shares if they fail to achieve this. The company set out its plans for a 1-for-2 rights issue in May to cover its cash outflows, while its hotels halted trading during lockdown. At the time it said it would suffer around £80m of cash outflows per month while its hotels and pubs were either temporarily closed or operating with low occupancy. An extra £100m outflow was forecasted for customer refunds, and a further £130m of capital expenditure for committed projects. The company stated at the time that the rights issue would help “ensure that Whitbread emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic in the strongest possible position to take advantage of its long-term structural growth opportunities and win market share in both the United Kingdom and Germany”. To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@egi.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @estatesgazette