Whitbread buys portfolio of 19 hotels in Germany

Premier Inn and Costa owner Whitbread has announced the acquisition of a portfolio of 19 hotels in Germany from Foremost Hospitality Group for an undisclosed sum.

It said the deal will give Premier Inn substantial presence in the German hotel market - which is 35% larger than the UK - increasing the total committed network pipeline to 31 hotels with over 5,700 rooms across 15 key cities that are all expected to be open by the end of 2020.

Premier Inn currently has one hotel open in Frankfurt and a further eleven hotels in its committed pipeline across key cities in Germany, having recently secured an additional organic development in Munich for 216 bedrooms.

Whitbread said the acquisition is an important step in accelerating its existing international strategy and in replicating Premier Inn UK's success and network scale in "this key strategic market".

Chief executive officer Alison Brittain said: "One of our three key strategic priorities is to focus on building strong and sustainable growth in key international markets. Today's announcement marks the next stage in our ambitious growth plan for the Premier Inn brand in Germany. We believe Germany has many of the structural growth drivers that have underpinned the success of Premier Inn in the UK and that Germany is a market that will deliver strong returns in the future.

"This acquisition mirrors the strategic opportunity that we identified with Costa in China, where we recently bought out Costa's South China joint venture partner. Whitbread's strong businesses still have considerable growth opportunities in the UK, however, these two transactions and our continued investment in these new markets, gives us confidence in our ability to build international businesses of scale in both Germany and China, that will underpin our growth for decades to come."