WTBDY - Whitbread plc (WTBCF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript (Q&A)
2024-04-30 17:15:22 ET
Whitbread plc (WTBCF)
Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call (Q&A)
April 30, 2024 04:15 AM ET
Company Participants
Dominic Paul - Chief Executive Officer
Hemant Patel - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Vicki Stern - Barclays
Jamie Rollo - Morgan Stanley
Leo Carrington - Citigroup
Alex Brignall - Redburn Atlantic
Richard Clarke - Bernstein
Tim Barrett - Deutsche Numis
Ivor Jones - Peel Hunt
Estelle Weingrod - JPMorgan
Jarrod Castle - UBS
Presentation
Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Whitbread Full Year Results Call Q&A session. My name is Chach, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]
I'll now hand over to Dominic Paul, Chief Executive Officer, to begin. Dominic, please go ahead.
Dominic Paul
Thank you, Chach. Apologies everybody, we're starting slightly late. We just wanted to give people enough time to get through the registration process. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining our call for the full year 2024 Preliminary Results Q&A. And I'm joined by Hemant Patel, our Group CFO.
Hopefully, you've had a chance to listen to our webcast and review our materials this morning. I'll start with a brief overview for those who haven't seen it before opening up the call for Q&A when Hemant and I will be happy to answer your questions.
We've had a fantastic year and have delivered our highest level of profits and cash flow since becoming focused Hotel Group. Our UK business is the key driver behind this performance with our hotels outperforming the rest of the mid-scale and economy sector and delivering strong revenue growth.
Our continued focus on delivering material cost efficiencies meant that profits and margins were significantly ahead of last year and our UK business achieved its highest ever level of return on capital of 15.5%.
In Germany, we have continued to make really good progress. We added over 1,400 rooms this year and reduced our losses, reflecting the continued maturity of our estate and a much improved trading performance. We set out today a number of initiatives that will deliver a step change in our financial performance....
Whitbread plc (WTBCF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript (Q&A)