Welcome Break

Welcome Break

Type	Private company
Industry	Hospitality
Founded	1959
Headquarters	Newport Pagnell, England, UK
Area served	United Kingdom except Northern Ireland
Key people	Rod McKie, CEO
Products	35 service stations
Revenue	£630m
Number of employees	4,500
Parent	Appia Investments
Website	www.welcomebreak.co.uk

Welcome Break is a company which operates 35 motorway service stations in the UK. It is the second largest motorway service area operator behind Moto.

Opened in 1959, the service area at Newport Pagnell on the M1 motorway near Milton Keynes by Motorway Services Ltd was the company's first service area under the Forte name and was only the second service area to be constructed on the fledgling UK motorway network. The name "Welcome Break" came from a chain of rival restaurants to Little Chef, created by Allen Jones. These restaurants eventually either became Happy Eaters or closed. The name was brought back to life when Hanson Trust used it to rename Ross Food's service stations. The company's portfolio was expanded to five motorway service areas during periods under the ownership of the Imperial Group and subsequently the Hanson Trust before being purchased by Trusthouse Forte in 1986. Under this deal, the Welcome Break name was adopted across the entire estate, with Trusthouse Forte's sixteen existing service areas re-branded as Welcome Break.

Welcome Break also operate Days Inn motels, Days Hotel and Ramada hotels at other sites other than their own, at Services and Town/City locations:

In January 1996, the Forte Group was the subject of a £3.9 billion hostile takeover by the British media group Granada. Due to Granada's existing major presence in the motorway services market, a subsequent investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission ordered Granada to sell 27 of the Welcome Break sites. The company was eventually bought by Investcorp in 1997 for £476m. Investcorp then sold Welcome Break to Appia Investments in March 2008 for £500m.