WHITBREAD PLC (WTB)

Blog posts

It’s Getting More Difficult to Vote

It’s certainly getting more difficult to vote of late, and I am not talking about voting at General Elections but just for resolutions at the General Meetings of companies we own. This seems to be a particular problem with Capita Registrars. Here’s some examples: Whitbread: As a personal crest member, I am on the register and expect to be sent an annual report and proxy voting form (and at least the latter on paper). But no longer it seems. Whitbread ...

Post Date: June 15, 2017 Read more

Whitbread AGM Report – More Fun Than Lloyds?

The Whitbread Annual General Meeting took place at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster on the 21st June. This was one of the few FTSE-100 AGMs I have attended where the Chairman seemed to pay good attention to the views of private shareholders rather than considering it a tedious 2 hours that had to be suffered. In addition shareholders (and I am a new one) could learn a great deal about the strategy of the company and its affairs from the meeting. ...

Post Date: June 23, 2016 Read more

Company Results – Alliance Trust, LSE and Whitbread

This morning Alliance Trust announced their results for the year ending December 2015. This company has been the subject of a campaign by ShareSoc (see https://www.sharesoc.org/alliance.html ) and Elliott Advisors were also aggressive in demanding changes before Alliance's last Annual General Meeting but then committed to a truce for one year. Subsequently the Chairman Karin Forseke and Chief Executive Katherine Garrett-Cox have departed and the board has otherwise been restructured. This followed some years of underperformance which resulted in a wide ...

Post Date: March 4, 2016 Read more

AGM Reports

Whitbread (WTB) AGM 2017

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of Whitbread Plc (WTB). This was at the Church House Conference Centre at 2.00 pm (a good time and venue – although I did have to get through the security cordon around the Houses of Parliament for the Queen’s “opening” and speech and the threatened leftist/anarchist demo which proved to be a damp squib. Whitbread is celebrating 275 years in business this year. Founded by brewer Samuel Whitbread it now only brews coffee. It’s main ...

Post Date: June 22, 2017 AGM Date: June 21, 2017 Author: Roger Lawson Read more

Whitbread (WTB) AGM Report 2016 – More Fun Than Lloyds?

The Whitbread Annual General Meeting took place at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster on the 22nd June. This is a good venue although some objected to the 2.0 pm start time, but others liked it. There were about 100 shareholders present. As the Chairman said, a later start time does enable people to travel from some distance. Some background first: Whitbread now has three main business strands: Premier Inn budget hotels, restaurants (Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, etc), and the Costa coffee shops. ...

Post Date: June 23, 2016 AGM Date: June 22, 2016 Author: Roger Lawson Read more