Whitbread has agreed to make a one-off contribution of up to £380m to the group’s pension fund after the sale of its Costa Coffee chain to Coca-Cola.
The company, which owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, said it had come to an agreement with the trustee of Whitbread’s defined benefit pension scheme whereby the payment would release Costa from its obligations to the fund.
The payment will replace a deficit recovery plan, which would have required Whitbread to make total payments of £326m to the pension fund over four years. Whitbread said the move would significantly de-risk the investment strategy of the pension fund, which has 38,000 members.
