Whitbread, the leisure group, is to open a Costa coffee shop in Pushkin Square, Moscow, in the new year as the first step towards opening at least 200 across Russia over five years.

The group said yesterday that it had signed a joint venture agreement with OJSC Rosinter Restaurants, Russia’s leading casual dining operator, in which each party will invest $5 million (£2.44 million). The venture will acquire and rebrand up to ten units presently run by Rosinter under the Moka Loka name.

The development programme will initially focus on Moscow and St Petersburg, but the two companies also intend to open stores in Ukraine and Belarus. The entry of Costa into Russia comes after similar deals in India and China. It runs 268 stores in 20 markets, in addition to its 655 in the UK. Alan Parker, Whitbread’s chief executive, said: “It’s not just a nice little earner any more but has become a global brand.”

The announcement came as Whitbread announced a 5 per cent rise in like-for-like sales in the third quarter, a slight slowdown from the 6.6 per cent increase reported in the first half. Costa achieved like-for-like growth in the quarter of about 5.4 per cent, while Premier Inn, its budget hotel chain, was up by about 10.6 per cent.

Mr Parker said that Premier Inn’s occupancy had ticked up from 82.2 per cent to 82.7 per cent thanks to an increase in corporate business. “Some people are trading down from more expensive hotels,” he said.

The worst performer was the restaurant business. Third-quarter sales were down by almost 2 per

cent in a “challenging environment”, although Mr Parker said that after excluding the Brewers Fayre units that had closed for refurbishment underlying sales were “broadly neutral”. He said that “self-help” initiatives would boost full-year profit per restaurant by more than 10 per cent.

Whitbread bought back £259 million of shares during the first nine months, a figure that is expected to pass £300 million by the year-end.

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