Hemant Patel Sells 2,607 Shares of Whitbread plc (LON:WTB) Stock

Whitbread plc (LON:WTB - Get Free Report) insider Hemant Patel sold 2,607 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of GBX 2,790 ($37.70), for a total transaction of £72,735.30 ($98,290.95).

Whitbread Trading Down 0.3%

LON WTB traded down GBX 8.58 ($0.12) on Wednesday, reaching GBX 2,838.42 ($38.36). The company had a trading volume of 615,309 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,358,134. Whitbread plc has a fifty-two week low of GBX 2,253 ($30.45) and a fifty-two week high of GBX 3,352 ($45.30). The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 33.18, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 1.74. The firm has a market cap of £5.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.95, a P/E/G ratio of -3.09 and a beta of 1.11. The business has a 50 day moving average of GBX 2,613.91 and a two-hundred day moving average of GBX 2,750.05.

Whitbread (LON:WTB - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The company reported GBX 194.60 ($2.63) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Whitbread had a return on equity of 6.83% and a net margin of 8.08%. Analysts forecast that Whitbread plc will post 227.1851852 EPS for the current year.

Whitbread announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, May 1st that allows the company to repurchase 0 shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup cut their price target on Whitbread from GBX 3,700 ($50.00) to GBX 3,300 ($44.59) and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut Whitbread to a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, March 7th. Finally, Shore Capital reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Whitbread in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Whitbread has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of GBX 2,860 ($38.65).

About Whitbread

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.

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