Whitbread H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
October 16, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: In the UK, occupancy rose to 81% in H1 with RevPAR up 3% year-on-year in the current trading period, and forward bookings are ahead of last year.
  • Positive Sentiment: In Germany, adjusted losses narrowed to £3 million in H1, and the business is on track to deliver up to £5 million of PBT this year with a medium-term target of £70 million by FY 30.
  • Positive Sentiment: Group EBITDA was down just 2% on the prior year, and strong free cash flow funded £95 million of property disposals and £182 million returned to shareholders in H1, with a £250 million share buyback underway.
  • Positive Sentiment: The accelerated growth plan will unlock 3,500 extension rooms and replace F&B formats, reversing last year’s one-off £20–25 million profit impact and targeting over £100 million of incremental profit by FY 30.
  • Negative Sentiment: The company moderated its German PBT guidance to up to £5 million this year due to softer-than-expected market demand, and anticipates an additional £5–10 million of lease costs from sale-and-leaseback activity.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Whitbread H1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 2 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone. I'm Dominic Ball, Group CEO, and I'd like to welcome you to Whitbread's twenty twenty six Interim Results Presentation. Today's presentation will take place by remote webcast followed by a live Q and A session at 09:15AM UK time. And Hemant Patel, our group CFO, and I will be happy to answer your questions. Details of how to join the call can be found on the website.

Operator

I'm going to start by taking you through the excellent progress we have made during the first half and provide a summary of our results. I'll then hand over to Hammond, who will take you through our results in detail. I'll then come back to cover the strategic initiatives which ladder up to our five year plan. But first, I just want to spend a few moments on the strategic progress we are making to transform our business. When I rejoined Whiplock Bread nearly three years ago, it was already a fantastic business, but with the potential to go even further.

Operator

Since then, we have announced our Exertion Growth Plan, which, together with our other strategic initiatives, became our five year plan that sets out the scale of our ambition. I'm really pleased with the progress we are making in what has been a more challenging environment. In The UK, as the overall market returned to growth in the second quarter, I'm pleased to say that we maintained our outperformance versus the market in the first half, driven by our strong guest proposition and ongoing commercial program. In Germany, we are making great progress and remain on track to deliver profitability in full year 2026. And with increasing scale and maturity, we expect to deliver £70,000,000 of profit before tax by full year 2020.

Operator

By focusing on what we can control, we continue to make excellent progress on each of the key initiatives underpinning our confidence in the medium term. As a result, our five year plan remains on track to deliver a step change in our profits, generating £2,000,000,000 for shareholder returns by full year 30. We are executing well and we're on a clear path to become a much bigger and an even better business, delivering for our guests, teams, and shareholders. Having seen a return to market growth in the second quarter, UK total accommodation sales were broadly in line with last year. We made good progress in Germany despite softer market demand in the second quarter, delivering 7% of combination sales growth resulting in a reduced loss of £3,000,000 Despite inflationary pressures, our UK cost base reduced by 3% with the impact of our accelerating growth plan and increased cost efficiencies.

Operator

Lower UK profit before tax meant The UK return on capital employed for the first half was 11.8%. While Group PBT was back 10%, the strength of our vertically integrated model meant that Group EBITDA was down just 2% year on year and still 41% up versus full year 2018. As a result, we generated significant free cash flow that helped fund our program investment as well as GBP 182,000,000 of shareholder returns in the period. And despite lower earnings with the impact of share buybacks completed over the last twelve months, adjusted earnings per share increased by just 2%. Moving now to the outlook for full year 2026.

Operator

While forward visibility remains limited and despite some uncertainty around the forthcoming UK budget, I am pleased with the progress we are making across each of our three strategic pillars and remain confident in the full year outlook. First, in The UK, as you will have seen the positive momentum has continued into the current trading period and our forward booked position is ahead of last year. We remain on track to open 1,000 to 1,200 new rooms this year and we're making excellent progress with our servicing growth plan, having now opened the first of our new extension rooms. We are on track to fully reverse the impact on full year 2025 profits. Second, in Germany, demand has stepped up in recent weeks, and we are delivering a more positive trading performance.

Operator

We have significantly grown our pipeline with the agreement to acquire eight new hotels in prime city locations and remain on track to open 400 new rooms by the end of this year. And we're on course to deliver profitability in Germany this year, albeit we are moderating our guidance slightly and now expect to deliver adjusted PBT of up to £5,000,000 this year, reflecting softer than expected market demand in the second quarter. And third, we will continue to drive long term growth. Having made great progress in the year to date, we will recycle $250,000,000 to £300,000,000 worth of property this year to help fund our network expansion and accelerating growth plan. We now expect to deliver 65,000,000 to £70,000,000 of efficiencies this year, up from £60,000,000 guided previously, partially mitigating high levels of inflation, and we are on track to complete our previously announced £250,000,000 share buyback by the time of our full year 2026 results.

Operator

The excellent progress that we are making on our initiatives means that we remain confident in delivering a step change in profitability and significant returns for shareholders. Our accelerating growth plan will boost UK margins and returns by optimizing our food and beverage offering at a number of sites and unlock 3,500 extensions. We will also open at least 8,000 new high returning hotel rooms, reaching 98,000 rooms across The UK and Ireland. Together, these two elements will deliver over £220,000,000 of incremental profit by full year 'thirty. In Germany, we aim to have 20,000 rooms opened by the end of full year 'thirty.

Operator

With greater scale and brand maturity, maturity, we remain on track to reach £70,000,000 profit by full year 30, an uplift of £80,000,000 versus full year 2025. And as a budget hotel brand, we remain focused on managing our costs and will deliver £250,000,000 worth of savings by full year '30. Our commercial program is expected to drive positive like for like sales momentum in The UK, and together with our efficiencies, our assumption is it will be able to offset cost inflation over the life of the plan. This plan is fully funded and will keep average net CapEx of £500,000,000 which is net of proceeds for property related transactions. We have made great progress, having completed a number of sale and leasebacks at attractive yields in the year to date.

Operator

We are pleased with the updated valuation of our estate and are confident that we can recycle at least £1,000,000,000 worth of property over the life of the plan. I will now hand over to Hemmult, who will take you through our performance in more detail.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Dominic, and good morning, everyone. I'll start with a summary of the group's performance before covering The UK and Germany in a bit more detail. I'll then provide an overview of our FY 'twenty six outlook, current trading and updates to our guidance, before a reminder of our capital allocation framework and some details of our updated property valuation. Our robust trading performance in The UK and good progress in Germany were offset by reduced food and beverage revenues owing to our accelerating growth plan, resulting in overall revenues slightly behind Higher than expected gross inflation was mitigated by excellent progress on cost savings and reductions in our cost base due to the accelerating growth plan.

Speaker 1

As a result, operating costs fell by 2% but slightly lower revenues meant that adjusted EBITDA was also down 2% to £600,000,000 Having returned £182,000,000 to shareholders over the past six months, lower net interest receivable meant that adjusted profit before tax was GBP $316,000,000. Adjusting items of GBP 28,000,000, the majority of which related to our accelerated growth plan, meant that statutory profit before tax was GBP $287,000,000. Our vertically integrated model continues to generate significant operating cash flow, and we were able to build on this with GBP 95,000,000 in property disposals, helping to fund our investments in high returning growth opportunities. We have a strong balance sheet with lease adjusted leverage of 3.2 times, which is within our investment grade threshold of 3.5 times. I'll now run through the guidance behind this performance, starting with The UK.

Speaker 1

UK accommodation sales were aligned with the first half of last year. This, with the expected reduction in food and beverage revenues as a result of our accelerating growth plan, meant that total UK revenues were 3% behind last year. Although there was higher than expected cost inflation, we delivered an increased level of efficiencies, which, together with the impact of our accelerated growth plan, meant that UK operating costs fell by 3%. Taking all of these movements together, UK adjusted profit before tax reduced by 7% to £331,000,000. Our occupancy levels stepped up in the second quarter as we saw a return to market growth supported by stronger demand over the summer months, delivering 81% in the first half, which, although lower than last year, is still ahead of pre pandemic levels.

Speaker 1

With the benefits of our commercial initiatives and trading expertise, average room rate strengthened by 2% to £86, While RevPAR was back 1% with the impact of our continued network growth, total accommodation sales were flat to £1,100,000,000, over 50% higher than pre pandemic. Whilst our level of performance can vary depending on a number of factors, including supply changes, competitive force, and demand levels, we sustained our market outperformance in the first half. Through our brand strength, training expertise, and commercial initiatives, we outperform the market on both RevPAR and accommodation sales growth, under continued command a healthy RevPAR premium that increased to just over £6. In the current trading period, we're analyzing against what was a strong performance last year. However, we've maintained a healthy RevPAR per year into the market of just over £5.50.

Speaker 1

Now on to Germany. We're pleased with our progress in Germany despite softer than expected market demand in the second quarter. Revenues were up 9% driven by the increasing maturity of our estate. Further improvements to our trading strategies, broadened our distribution, and increasing food and beverage sales. Operating costs in the period increased to £88,000,000 reflecting our network expansion and cost inflation.

Speaker 1

However, with strong revenue growth, our EBITDA increased by 23% to £37,000,000 and adjusted losses before tax reduced significantly to £3,000,000 Our cohort of more established hotel businesses continue to mature and is a key driver of our overall performance. On a rolling twelve month basis, profit for central loan pairs increased to £17,000,000 in the period, up from £10,000,000 a year ago. The cohort is on track to reach its targeted double digit return. We're making excellent progress with continued outperformance versus the rest of the German midscale and economy market. As you can see, both our more established cohorts and our network as a whole are outperforming the market in terms of RevPAR growth despite softer than expected market demand in the second quarter.

Speaker 1

RevPAR on our cobalt, the more established hotels grew by 3% in local currency ahead of our certain state, reinforcing the point that is not yet mature, giving us real confidence that it can and will grow further. Turning now to group cash flow. The strength of our vertically integrated model meant that we delivered adjusted operating cash flow of $4.00 £6,000,000 helping to fund both our ongoing program of investment in future growth and shareholder returns. We continue to invest in high returning growth opportunities, including our accelerated growth plan and network expansion in both The UK and Germany. The result of the gross CapEx spend was higher than last year at $328,000,000 As previously announced, we will recycle GBP 1,000,000,000 of property over the life of our five year plan, with GBP $250,000,000 to GBP 300,000,000 of property proceeds expected in FY 2026.

Speaker 1

We made great progress towards this with GBP 95,000,000 of proceeds from property disposals, resulting in net CapEx of £233,000,000 The net result was a total cash flow before shareholder returns of £102,000,000 Having returned just over £180,000,000 to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks, we maintain a strong balance sheet with a net debt position of £563,000,000 and a lease adjusted leverage of 3.2 times, which is below the investment grade threshold of three and a half times. Now on to current trading and updates to our FY twenty six guidance. In The UK, positive trading momentum continued and both total accommodation sales and RevPAR were up 3% versus last year. Our forward book position is ahead of last year, and with continued impacts of our commercial initiatives, we remain confident in maintaining a healthy RevPAR premium versus the market. F and B sales were down in line with our expectations, reflecting the impact of our accelerating growth plan.

Speaker 1

In Germany, we've seen market recovery in more recent weeks after what was a soft start to September, with total accommodation sales up 9% versus last year. RevPAR for the total estate 3% ahead of last year at €82 and RevPAR for the more established cohort was 8% ahead of last year at €95. With a positive forward book position supported by strong events calendar, we're confident we can drive further RevPAR growth. Reflecting the group performance of the year to date, we've made some modest changes to our FY 2026 guidance as follows. Higher than expected cost inflation in The UK will be partially mitigated through accelerated efficiencies of 65,000,000 to 70,000,000 barrels at FY 2026, up from £60,000,000 As a result, we still expect net inflation to be within our previously guided 2% to 3% range.

Speaker 1

In Germany, we're making good progress and remain on track to deliver profitability this financial year, albeit we're moderating our PBT guidance slightly. We now expect up to GBP 5,000,000 of PBT this year from GBP 5,000,000 to 10 previously due to softer than expected market demand in q two. Finally, there'll be an additional 5 to £10,000,000 of lease costs as a result of the progress we're making on sale and leasebacks. Our capital allocation framework is unchanged. Our disciplined approach is focused on delivering sustainable, attractive returns and seeks to strike an appropriate balance between investing in high returning growth opportunities and return excess capital to shareholders.

Speaker 1

As a reminder, there are four priorities in our framework. First, maintain investment grade credit rating is a source of strategic advantage for us. We will continue to keep this adjusted leverage below our threshold of three and a half times. Second, investing in high return growth opportunities such as the accelerated growth plan, using proceeds from property related disposals to keep average debt CapEx the maximum of £500,000,000 per annum, plus the life of our five year plan. Third, continue to grow dividends in line with earnings.

Speaker 1

Lastly, we take the excess capital to shareholders. As well as keeping the interim dividend per share the same as last year, we're on track to complete our previously announced £250,000,000 share buyback by the time we're on FY '26 results. And we remain on course to return £2,000,000 to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends over the life of our five year plan. Finally, an update on our recent property Since it was last valued in 02/2018, we're pleased that the value of our freehold of the long leasehold property has increased to between 5.5 and £6,400,000, which represents an uplift of circa half a million pounds.

Speaker 1

This is based on individual sale leaseback transaction values of the wider market. The key assumptions are a net initial yield range of five and a half to six and a half percent. Average rent cover of two point zero times, and they include £760,000,000 for non trading assets and those still under construction. It's also worth highlighting that since the last property evaluation in 02/2018, we've realized over 400,000,000 of property related disposal proceeds. As previously announced, we'll recycle GBP one billion of property over the life of our five year plan and making great progress.

Speaker 1

We've completed the sale leaseback of eight properties for GBP 99,000,000 at attractive yields. This includes our Clapham Hotel in London for which we realized £19,000,000 in cash and profits on disposals of nearly £4,000,000. Having received a £120,000,000 of property proceeds in the year to date, including restaurant disposals, disposals, we're on track to realize between $250,000,000 and £300,000,000 in FY 2026. I'll now hand back to Dominic to talk through our strategic priorities in more detail.

Operator

Thank you, Hammond. I'll now take you through the progress we've made against our key initiatives and our future plans. Turning first to our strategy and progress in The UK. Our Acceleration Growth Plan is our biggest ever development program, increasing the performance of over 200 of our UK sites. The transformation of our food and beverage offering at these locations will result in us becoming a much bigger and more profitable business whilst delivering an even better service for our hotel guests.

Operator

Drawing upon our significant in house property expertise, we are making excellent progress on unlocking 3,500 high returning extension rooms in areas where we know we have excess excess demand. And I'm pleased to say that first of our extension rooms are now open. On the right hand side of the slide, you can see that we've moved quickly over the past eighteen months. And as of the half year, we had 80% all schemes in planning with 60% of these already approved. We have completed or are in progress at over 20% of sites with further progress against all of these measures expected by the end of this financial year.

Operator

The other element is optimizing our food and beverage offering at these sites, replacing the previous branded restaurant with a more tailored and efficient integrated format for our hotel guests. Having already sold just over 40 sites, we are on track to exit the remaining effective branded restaurants by the end of full year 2026 as planned, and have already opened just over 50 new integrated restaurants, which are driving an increase in commercial performance. By the end of this year, we will have 500 to 700 extension rooms open. And as previously guided, we are on track to fully reverse the one off impact to last year's profit of between 20 to £25,000,000. Once complete, the plan will deliver incremental profit versus full year 2025 of at least £100,000,000, increasing our UK margins and returns.

Operator

Since the pandemic, UK hotel supply has declined, driven by a shift in demand from non branded to branded hotels and a reduction in the number of independents. Our market analysis, which is based on conservative assumptions, shows that we don't expect hotel supply to recover to 2019 levels until at least 2027. Our committed and future pipeline of both Premier Inn and hub rooms alongside 3,500 extension rooms unlocked through our Accelerating Growth Plan supports our target of reaching at least 98,000 rooms by full year 30. We are well placed to capture further profitable share of The UK hotel market and drive returns higher. As we progress towards our long term potential of up to 125,000 rooms across The UK and Ireland, the pace at which we have new rooms will be determined by the level of returns that we can generate.

Operator

With nearly 30% of our committed pipeline driven by the expansion of Hub, I want to spend a few moments talking about why we are excited about the brand momentum and longer term potential. There are a number of differences between Hub and our main Premier Inn brand. Hub allows us to target a distinct part of the market, attracting both business and leisure guests who value prime city locations. The rooms feature a sleek modern design with integrated technology. While smaller than a typical premium in room, they offer everything that our guests need for a great stead.

Operator

Customer journey is more digitally led, catering to tech savvy guests. While there is a food and beverage offer, this is a more tailored offering with a focus on the bar experience. And why does it work? Well, we've been able to drive high up to see levels at a great price point for our guests. And with a lean operating model, this is resulting in strong economics.

Operator

With a higher density of rooms per square foot than a traditional private room, we can drive higher profit per room and still meet our return thresholds even in relatively high cost locations. Whilst pleased with our strong performance and high guest scores, we are further optimizing our offer. And with 5,000 rooms in our open and committed pipeline, we feel that the brand has huge potential. We're excited about where it can go from here. Turning now to our commercial program.

Operator

Premier Inn remains The UK's number one hotel brand with over 90% brand awareness. However, we are not complacent and have continued to invest in our brand with several successful campaigns in the period. We are also optimizing our digital marketing activity across multiple channels, increasing the impact of our campaigns and reducing our cost per acquisition. We are broadening our addressable customer base and doing so profitably. Our business to business proposition continues to perform well with good growth in business booker through improved account management for our customers.

Operator

And to make it even easier to book with us, we will launch Premier Inn Business this year, combining our Business Booker and Business Account into one single platform. We are also continuing to optimize our relationships with travel management companies, which is driving sales growth through this important channel. Our use of inbound only online travel agents is going well and is proving to be a helpful addition in driving incremental international demand. As we've highlighted already in this presentation, we have continued to outperform wider market in the first half underpinned by the success of our commercial program. Strong revenue management remains central to our approach and a key differentiator versus our competitors.

Operator

Our proprietary automated trading engine enables us to refine and optimize our pricing for any given volume of demand, so that we can maximize revenues and returns. Our ancillary options are performing well and helping strike incremental revenue. We also continue to optimize our event trading strategies and have included an example which shows our significant outperformance versus market on both occupancy and RevPAR for one of the recent Oasis concerts at Wembley. And we're further enhancing the digital experience and making good progress towards the app becoming central to how guests book and stay with us. We've seen improvements in satisfaction, channel share, and revenues driven by updates to the customer journeys, such as the options to check-in online, providing a more seamless arrival experience.

Operator

The majority of our guests book directly with us, meaning we have access to a large and growing customer database. By leveraging our data, we are seeing an increase in guest engagement and enhancing our promotional capabilities with one recent email campaign alone, delivering £3,000,000 in incremental revenue. All of these initiatives are helping us drive positive like for like sales momentum. With more initiatives planned, we have the potential to increase our commercial performance even further. Our vertically integrated model underpins our position as The UK's number one hotel brand driven by a reputation for high quality and great value.

Operator

We are progressing with the rollout of our latest standard room format, ID five, which is delivering improved guest scores. We are continuing to add more Premier Plus and Twin rooms, which deliver a RevPAR premium compared to a standard room in the same hotel. In Food and Beverage, our integrated ground floor concepts are performing well. And for those branded restaurants unaffected by accelerating growth plan, we've implemented a range of commercial initiatives to help drive positive sales momentum and increase profitability. And finally, we remain committed to supporting our teams, maintaining high levels of engagement and employee satisfaction, which in turn helps drive great guest scores.

Operator

The UK inflation environment has been challenging over the past few years, particularly with the impact of increases in national living wage and national insurance contributions. We have a strong track record of responding to these headwinds and over time mitigate their impact through careful management of our cost base and the delivery of significant efficiencies. In the first half, we delivered £43,000,000 and are now accelerating our expected savings between £65,000,000 and £70,000,000 this year, and we remain on track for a total of £250,000,000 in efficiencies across the life of the plan. The program initiatives across all areas of our business, which when taken together add up to a lot. You've heard us talk about robot vacuums before, but they are making a real difference for our housekeepers and reducing our costs across our state and will be operational at the vast majority of our sites by the end of the year.

Operator

I'm also pleased to say that in the first half, we have transformed our food and beverage distribution, moving to a new supplier, adopting a more tailored streamlined model that is already driving significant savings and operational benefits. Now let's move on to Germany. Germany is a significant growth we We with We We in business. Made successful a in have in With our latest agreement to acquire 1,500 rooms together with our growing committed pipeline, we will have just over 20,000 rooms, close to double the number

Speaker 1

of rooms we have opened today.

Operator

This is not the end goal. We determined to fulfill our ambition to become the number one hotel brand in Germany. As we've built our presence in Germany, we've refined our property strategy. And having learned a lot over the past few years, we've now cracked the code using optimal location planning to get the best sites and make better decisions about how we convert new sites to the premium brand, drive efficiencies, accelerate maturity, and generate high returns. Supporting our longer term growth ambitions, we have agreed the acquisition of 1,500 new rooms, which is eight hotels located in great locations in key cities with completion expected in spring twenty twenty six.

Operator

To bring this to life, we have shown on the right hand side what our Hamburg portfolio will look like with this latest acquisition. With six hotels already opened, three in the committed pipeline and two more added through this deal, we're on track to reach 11 open hotels in Hamburg. Strong performance from our existing Hamburg estate reinforces confidence in our longer term plans. We will soon have circled 2,000 rooms in one of Germany's largest cities with the potential to grow even further. And as in The UK, we are always looking to improve our commercial strategy, drawing upon our growing pool of data to drive our performance.

Operator

Throughout the first half this year, we continue to drive RevPAR growth ahead of market, even in what was a softer than expected second quarter. We continue to refine our trading strategies with a particular focus on event nights given their significance in German. We have seen a year on year improvement in our performance versus the market on these nights with our more established cohort now delivering RevPAR ahead of the market and our total stake before we brought in one with confidence this will improve as our estate continues to mature. And while the market faced a tough second quarter, we feel really good about the progress we're making in Germany. And I've just mentioned, we are optimizing our trading strategies.

Operator

Having expanded our distribution channels to include online travel agents and third parties, we're generating incremental demand, which is contributing to further RevPAR growth. And our product is landing extremely well with guests, resulting in high guest scores and contributing to increasing brand maturity. Our five year plan remains on track. With our growing estate progressing maturity, we expect to deliver adjusted profits of £70,000,000 by full year 2013. In the same year, we also expect to reach double digit returns on our current open portfolio of 11,000 rooms.

Operator

As our state and brand continue to mature, we will see a further increase to profits, margins and returns beyond full year 'thirty. And now moving on to the third pillar of our strategy, enabling long term growth. Emmett has already updated you on our latest property valuation and progress on our planned recycling of capital. I want to now remind you of the commercial and financial benefits of our flexible property approach. We are broadly agnostic between freehold and leasehold as long as it meets our internal return threshold, meaning we can maximize our chances of securing the best sites, the best locations, whilst minimizing the risk of cannibalization so that we can drive strong returns.

Operator

Operational flexibility means we can optimize returns from the site, so that once mature, we can recycle the capital and reinvest in future growth. We can realize significant development profits through disposals via sale of leasebacks, and a property backed balance sheet supports our strong financial covenant, helping to secure more favorable terms with landlords and financing terms with lenders. Our property value creation cycle is summarized here. Our already strong covenant means we can secure high quality sites to generate excellent returns, which in turn attract outside funding and offer us a chance to recycle capital, and so the cycle continues. As a reminder, we segment our state into five distinct groups shown here on the right hand side of this slide.

Operator

As the site moves through each stage, we look to recycle the capital to drive higher returns. With 20% to 30% of our hotels now having strong yield potential, we are planning to recycle some of this capital into new high return opportunities such as our accelerating growth plan. Our force for good program holds us accountable for delivering meaningful change across our three key pillars of opportunity, community, and responsibility. It is embedded across all areas of our business strategy. We're making strong progress against our targets.

Operator

Key highlights include the expansion of our Thrive program, including the launch of our latest mini premier in based in Lincoln this week that trains and supports young people with special education needs as they seek to enter the workplace. Continuing our work with our charity partners, including raising over £27,000,000 to Great Ormond Street Hospital, we're committed to raising a further £20,000,000 with a new appeal that will fund the development of a new children's cancer sector. Our focus on managing our environmental footprint means that we have the most low carbon hotel rooms in The UK and Ireland, with over 2,000 opened by the end of this financial year. We also remain on track to deliver a 50% reduction in food waste by 02/1930. So I'm going to end with a brief summary.

Operator

As I said at the beginning of the presentation, I'm really pleased with the pace at which we are executing, and we are on track to deliver a step change in our profits, margins and returns. In The UK, the return to market growth and positive trading momentum mean we are confident in the full year outlook. In Germany, we are making great progress and are on track to deliver profitability in full year 2026. With increasing scale and maturity, we remain on course to £70,000,000 of profit before tax by full year 30 with further growth potential thereafter. As I set out today, we remain focused on what we can control and are executing in each of the key initiatives underpinning our five year plan that is set to deliver a step change in our profits, generating GBP 2,000,000,000 of share returns by full year 'thirteen.

Operator

Thank you for joining us this morning. Hemans and I will host a Q and A session starting at 09:15AM UK time, and we look forward to taking your questions then. And you'll be to find the details of how to join the call on our website.

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