Whitbread
| Whitbread PLC
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Public limited company |
| ISIN | GB00B1KJJ408 |
| Seat | Dunstable , England |
| Branch | hotel |
| Website | www.whitbread.co.uk |
Whitbread PLC is a UK company that owns several well-known hotels, restaurants and health and fitness clubs, mainly in the UK and Ireland. These include and included Pizza Hut restaurants, Maredo , Premier Inn and Marriott hotels. Whitbread is based in Dunstable in the county of Bedfordshire and the British FTSE 100 Index listed (Mark WTB).
history
The company was founded by Samuel Whitbread (* August 20, 1720, † June 11, 1796), who began a partnership with Thomas Shewell in 1742 and invested in two small Shewells breweries. Whitbread grew the business steadily over the years, and in 1765 he paid Shewell its share. At the end of the 18th century, Whitbread became the largest British brewery.
In 1889, the family business opened to investors as Whitbread and Company PLC . From 1955 to 1971 the company took over a total of 27 regional breweries. In 1968, Whitbread was licensed to brew Heineken lager . In 1974 a restaurant ( Beefeater , German "beef eater") was opened; In the following decades, the company expanded its involvement in restaurants and hotels, and this was followed by Pizza Hut Restaurants (1982), Premier Travel Inn (1987) and Marriott Hotels (1995), as well as the Costa Coffee chain (1995).
The company gradually withdrew from the alcohol business: in 1989 it sold the wine and spirits division to Allied-Lyons , in 2000 the Whitbread Beer Company to Interbrew SA and in 2001 the pub division to Morgan Grenfell Private Equity. This means that the company no longer owns any breweries. In 2018, Whitbread sold Costa Coffee to the Coca-Cola Company for $ 5.1 billion .
Whitbread as a sponsor
In 1971 Whitbread became a sponsor of the newly launched Whitbread Book Awards , a prestigious literary award for authors who have lived in the UK or Ireland for at least three years. First three, later five books were awarded prizes each year; one of them was selected as the Whitbread book of the year . In December 2005, Whitbread ended its commitment to the award; it has since been sponsored by the Costa Coffee chain, a former Whitbread subsidiary, under the new name of the COSTA Book Award .
In 1972 the company sponsored the newly founded sailing regatta Whitbread Round the World Race (often simply Whitbread for short ) - the first regatta whose course took the participating sailing crews around the world. It is still considered to be one of the toughest and most famous regattas of all. Whitbread was replaced as a sponsor by Volvo in 1998 , after which the regatta was renamed Volvo Ocean Race and is now simply called The Ocean Race for short .
Web links
- Company's website
- History of the company's founder, Samuel Whitbread
- Early documents and newspaper articles on Whitbread in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 52. St. James Press, 2003. Quoted in: Whitbread PLC on fundinguniverse.com (accessed June 8, 2007)
- ↑ Samuel Whitbread on www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk (8 Engl .; accessed June 2007)
- ↑ Coca-Cola buys Costa Coffee: Attack on Reimann's coffee empire . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed on August 31, 2018]).
- ↑ The Whitbread Book Awards on facstaff.unca.edu (accessed June 8, 2007)
- ↑ About the Race. Whitbread 1973-74 , from www.volvooceanrace.org (accessed June 8, 2007); About the race. Volvo Ocean Race 2001-2002 , from www.volvooceanrace.org (accessed June 8, 2007)