Whitbread confirms sale rumours

Whitbread has confirmed it has received what it describes as "unsolicited approaches" from potential buyers of its David Lloyd Leisure (DLL) business.

Weekend press reports said that the pubs-to-hotels group was in talks about a near £1bn sale of its fitness centre arm with Scott Lloyd, the son of the chain's founder.

Other bidders are believed to include Esporta gyms tycoon Simon Halabi and LA Fitness owner Ocean Partners.

Whitbread, which owns around 300 pub restaurants including the Beefeater brand, said it had received a number of approaches for DLL, which were in the "early stages of being evaluated to assess whether their further consideration would be in the interests of shareholders".

It added that "no decision to sell DLL had been made".

Former UK tennis star David Lloyd started up his leisure centre business in 1981 and sold it to Whitbread in 1995 for £200m.

Scott Lloyd, his son, runs the Next Generation chain of fitness clubs, backed by property tycoons Ian and Richard Livingstone.

Whitbread has been the subject of break-up speculation for some time, with private equity groups believed to be circling the group.