Whitbread, the UK's largest hospitality company, saw pre-tax profits rise by 18.5 per cent, owing to a strong performance by its coffee brand, Costa.
The company, which also owns the UK's largest hotel brand Premier Inn as well as Beefeater Grill, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Taybarns, saw a 11.1 per cent rise in revenue in its hotel and restaurant division.
According to BBC News, its underlying pre-tax profit rose to £488.1 million, exceeding estimates.
Whitbread bought the Costa Coffee chain in 1995, which then had 41 stores based in the UK. Costa now has almost 3,000 outlets worldwide.
The company will look to expand the Premier Inn from 60,000 rooms to over 85,000 in the next five years.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports chief executive Andy Harrison plans to retire from the company after nearly five years with the company.
Harrison, 57, will step down by February, giving the owner time to find a successor, Whitbread said in a statement Tuesday. He will seek new challenges, the first of which will be to take on the non-executive chairmanship of homeware retailer Dunelm Group.
