Whitbread's 3,000 pubs for Morgan Grenfell

British hotels and leisure firm Whitbread today wrapped up the sale of its 3,000-strong pub estate for £1

British hotels and leisure firm Whitbread today wrapped up the sale of its 3,000-strong pub estate for £1.625 billion sterling (euro 2.4 billion) and said it would return 75 per cent of the proceeds to its shareholders.

Deutsche Morgan Grenfell clinched the deal having fought off a challenge from three other bidders - Punch, Nomura and Candover/Pubmaster - which had all bid around £1.5 billion sterling.

The group's shareholders will receive 230p per share in cash or around £1.13 billion sterling of the proceeds. Whitbread said it will will now focus on high-growth areas of the British leisure market.

The company's main brands now include Marriott four-star hotels, Beefeater, Pizza Hut restaurants and David Lloyds active leisure outlets.

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Shares in Whitbread, which have outperformed the leisure, entertainment and hotels sector by around 32 per cent over the past year, were unchanged at £6.00 in London this morning.