The Share Centre - Whitbread showing signs of growth

The Share Centre currently list Whitbread as a ‘hold', favouring Marstons in the leisure sector . Nick Raynor, investment adviser at The Share Centre, explains that despite Whitbread experiencing an acceleration in growth, they still remain a ‘hold' for investors.

"These results are encouraging for Whitbread, with total group sales up 14% for the same period last year. Trading across all divisions is improving nicely, particularly in areas such as its Premier Inns chain which has seen revenues increase 9.8% per room year on year due to market growth and an improvement in market share.

"Despite these seemingly good results, we were actually hoping for something more exciting from the group which has a portfolio including Costa Coffee, Premier Inn and Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub restaurants. As a result we expect to see a slight weakness in share price after these results.  The FTSE 100 has also recorded seven straight days of gains, prompting investors to take any profit.

"We continue to list Whitbread as a ‘hold' for investors favouring Marstons in the leisure sector; although it is worth noting that the pub chain is more suited to higher risk investors."