Whitbread has mooted the possibility that it could sell its Costa Coffee or Premier Inn businesses rather than pursue its proposal to demerge its coffee business within the next two years.
In a circular to shareholders outlining a new executive pay scheme, the FTSE 100 group suggested it would be open to considering a sale of either business rather than spinning off Costa into a separately quoted company.
The circular said executives would be rewarded under a new performance share plan for the separation of the two brands “whether implemented by way of a demerger or by way of a sale to a third party of all or substantially all of either the Costa business or the Premier Inn business”.
