Premier Inn owner defiant as activist investor calls for sale

Premier Inn owner Whitbread has said it is “focused on driving stronger returns” after an activist investor reportedly called for the business to lay out sale plans.

Corvex Management, which owns a 7% stake in the business, has told Whitbread’s board that a sale is the “only credible path” to realise value for shareholders, according to reports in the Financial Times.

The investor has allegedly threatened to nominate new directors to the board if the company does not commit to a sale.

The renewed pressure comes just weeks after Whitbread unveiled a five-year plan to drive cost efficiencies and deliver £2b in returns to its shareholders.

 Dominic Paul, chief executive of Whitbread, had announced a blueprint to transform the 284-year-old hospitality company into a “higher-margin, higher-returning, pure-play hotel business”. 

Major changes announced included the exit of its branded restaurants business by full-year 2027.

Whitbread also revealed plans to cut 3,800 roles out of a total UK and Ireland workforce of around 30,000 and employ new technologies to unlock operational efficiencies.

As well as this the hotel group has proposed offloading £1.5b of freehold properties, reducing the overall portion of owned properties across its portfolio from 50% to 30%.

Today, a Whitbread spokesperson said: “Whitbread is focused on driving stronger returns for all our shareholders, and at our full-year results two weeks ago we announced the launch of our new five-year plan. This plan, which followed a rigorous review of our options to maximise value creation, is designed to deliver profitable growth and £2bn of free cash flow for shareholder returns by FY31. We have made good progress on our transformation to date, and this new plan will go further and faster to deliver for our shareholders.”

Like the rest of the industry, the budget hotel giant has been hit by increased costs and in November 2025 it said it would have to explore options to save £60m to offset National Insurance and business rate rises.