Premier Inn owner Whitbread and InterContinental Hotels saw shares leap higher after well-received figures, but further falls for commodity stocks held back progress on the wider FTSE 100 Index.
Whitbread, which also owns Costa Coffee and restaurant brands including Brewers Fayre, saw shares lift more than 2% after a better-than-expected 13.8% hike in half-year profits to £291.3
million.
Holiday Inn parent InterContinental also cheered the market with recent solid trading, although the FTSE 100 Index struggled to make headway, edging 12.1 points higher to 6364.4 as miners and oil firms lost more ground following yesterday’s weak China growth figures.
Silver miner Fresnillo was 7.8p lower at 726.8p, while BP and Royal Dutch Shell dropped 2.3p to 375p and 7.5p to 1792p respectively.
Commodity stocks have been hit hard after data yesterday showed China’s economic growth in the third quarter slumped to a six-year low, while factory output in the world’s second largest economy in September was below forecasts.
Among gainers, Whitbread’s profits leap and news of a dividend increase offset confirmation that the new national living wage will cost the group between £15 million and £20 million a year, with a £5 million hit over its second half after recent pay rises in its Costa chain.
InterContinental Hotels was 4% higher, up 88p to 2399p, after its third quarter update showed good growth in revenue per room.
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