Whitbread (LON:WTB) Trading Down 11.3% – Here’s Why

Whitbread plc (LON:WTB) traded down 11.3% on Saturday . The company traded as low as GBX 2,490 and last traded at GBX 2,493.73. 2,620,126 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 8% from the average session volume of 2,415,451 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 2,812.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on WTB. Panmure Gordon reissued a “buy” rating and set a GBX 3,700 price target on shares of Whitbread in a report on Tuesday. Peel Hunt reissued a “buy” rating and set a GBX 3,500 target price on shares of Whitbread in a report on Thursday, October 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Whitbread from GBX 2,800 to GBX 2,900 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 17th. Shore Capital restated a “buy” rating on shares of Whitbread in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Whitbread from GBX 3,600 to GBX 3,800 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 21st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of GBX 3,480.

Whitbread Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of £4.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.43, a PEG ratio of -3.09 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 33.18, a quick ratio of 1.74 and a current ratio of 0.96. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of GBX 3,004.93 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of GBX 2,998.16.

Whitbread (LON:WTB) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 16th. The company reported GBX 133.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Whitbread had a return on equity of 6.83% and a net margin of 8.08%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Whitbread plc will post 227.1851852 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Whitbread

In other news, insider Richard Gillingwater purchased 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 21st. The stock was bought at an average price of GBX 2,974 per share, with a total value of £14,870. Also, insider Christine Mary Hodgson purchased 10,000 shares of Whitbread stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 17th. The shares were purchased at an average price of GBX 2,880 per share, for a total transaction of £288,000. Corporate insiders own 0.38% of the company’s stock.

Whitbread Company Profile

Whitbread is the owner of Premier Inn, the UK’s biggest
hotel brand, with 86,000 rooms in over 850 hotels
and a growing presence in Germany with 10,500 rooms in
59 hotels, offering quality accommodation at affordable
prices in great locations.

People are at the heart of our business. We employ over
38,000 team members in over 900 Premier Inn hotels
across the UK and Germany.