break itself up by splitting off the Costa Coffee chain, the theory being the individual businesses would be worth up to 40% more than the current market capital value. On 25 April 2018, Whitbread announced its intention to demerge Costa. On 31 August 2018, it announced that The Coca-Cola Company had agreed to buy Costa Coffee for £3.9bn. In September 2020, the company announced that they would be cutting jobs, warning that 6,000 staff could lose employment. The company blamed the cuts on a slump in hotel guest numbers since the beginning of the UK's lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Current operations Whitbread's principal current operations are: Premier Inn Premier Inn is the UK's largest budget hotel chain, with over 750 hotels. Table Table Table Table is a UK restaurant brand. They started as converted Brewers Fayre restaurants. The brand was originally set up in 2006 unnamed; the name Table Table was launched in May 2008. There are around 100 sites in the UK. Beefeater Beefeater was launched in 1974. The chain underwent a huge revamp in the early 2000s. It then proceeded to change its name to "Beefeater Grill" for a period but in 2014 reverted to "Beefeater". Beefeater has 140 restaurants across the UK. Brewers Fayre Brewers Fayre is a pub-restaurant brand which was created in 1979. The pubs are designed to look and feel like traditional local pubs but with a particularly strong family presence. There are around 145 pubs across the country. Whitbread Inns The Whitbread Inns brand of restaurants was created by Whitbread in 2014. In January 2016 there were 13 pubs (all of which were Table Table) across central and southern England. Former operations Whitbread's former operations include: Costa Coffee, was founded in London in 1971 by the brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Acquired by Whitbread in 1995, it had since grown to over 2,861 stores across 30 countries. In August 2018, Whitbread announced that it would sell Costa Coffee to The Coca-Cola Company in a deal worth £3.9bn. The acquisition was completed on 3 January 2019 following a $4.9 billion transaction, with approval from regulatory authorities in the EU and China. Brewsters, a brand created in 1999. The emphasis was on families and most sites had been built as Brewers Fayre, this was to give Brewers Fayre