Whitbread, the FTSE-100 owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, has kicked off the search for a successor to Adam Crozier, its chairman.
Sky News has learnt that headhunters acting for Whitbread have begun sounding out possible candidates for the post.
Mr Crozier, who has chaired the company since 2018, is expected to step down at some point in the next 12 months, although he would not be ‘timed out’ under corporate governance guidelines until 2026.
Under his stewardship, Whitbread has been radically reshaped, selling its Costa Coffee subsidiary to The Coca-Cola Company in 2019 for nearly £4bn.
The company has also seen off an activist campaign spearheaded by Elliott Advisers, while Mr Crozier also orchestrated the appointment of Dominic Paul, its chief executive, following Alison Brittain’s retirement.
Whitbread is now engaged in a plan to sell a number of Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants as it seeks to focus on the expansion of Premier Inn.
It said recently that it sees potential to grow the network from 86,000 UK bedrooms to 125,000 over the next decade or so.
Mr Crozier is one of Britain’s most seasoned boardroom figures, and now chairs BT Group and Kantar, the market research and data business backed by Bain Capital and WPP Group.
He previously ran the Football Association, ITV and – in between – Royal Mail Group, which during his period in charge included the Post Office.
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Mr Crozier appeared as a witness at the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal earlier this year.
On Tuesday morning, shares in Whitbread were trading at around 3083p, giving the company a market capitalisation of about £5.5bn.
Whitbread declined to comment.