Whitbread Shares Sink as Premier Inn Owner Puts 3,800 Jobs at Risk in Restaurant Exit
London, April 30, 2026, 20:05 BST Whitbread PLC will shut or sell its remaining 197 branded restaurants and move to a fully hotel-led food model, putting about 3,800 UK and Ireland jobs at risk in the biggest reset yet of the Premier Inn owner’s strategy. The company said the plan will turn Whitbread into a higher-margin “pure-play” hotel business, while its shares closed sharply lower in London. The move matters now because Whitbread is trying to answer two pressures at once: higher UK costs, including business rates and National Insurance, and investor pressure to extract more value from its large
