Almost £60m for 900 vending machines? Whitbread has agreed to pay this extraordinary sum for Coffee Nation, a business it describes as being in the "self-service coffee bar sector". What it means is that the customers have to press the buttons.

Coffee Nation produced £4.2m of top-line profit last year, which is good going, even if one overlooks the absurdity of quoting a figure that ignores depreciation and amortisation (the machines presumably don't last forever).

But should Whitbread, owner of Costa Coffee, be so intimidated by this upstart that it feels it has to buy it? Wouldn't it be bolder to try to develop a superior machine and fight for available retail spaces? Whitbread's move looks weak.