Mon 22nd Aug 2016 - Simon French – expect The Restaurant Group to confirm disposal of up to 40 sites Simon French – expect The Restaurant Group to confirm disposal of up to 40 sites: Cenkos Securities leisure analyst Simon French has said he expects The Restaurant Group to confirm the disposal of up to 40 sites when it announces its first half results on Friday (26 August). Issuing a ‘Buy’ note on the shares with a target price of 424p, he said: “We expect a 12% decline in underlying profit before tax (on a 27 week basis) to £32.5m and a similar cut in the dividend to 6.0p. The recent appointment of Andy McCue has reduced some of the pressure on the board and investors will give McCue the time he needs to turn the company around. As a start we expect the group to confirm alongside the results the disposal of up to 40 sites and the removal of up to £5m head office costs, which were put in place over the past 18 months to support an accelerated new store opening programme, since scaled back. This will provide solid foundations from which to permanently reinvest in food and labour cost in Frankie & Benny’s. The stock has rallied strongly to trade on a 2017E adjusted EV/Ebitdar of 7.3 times but this is still inexpensive relative to the peer group, Buy.”