{"id":4868,"date":"2018-11-28T15:32:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T15:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/frankie-bennys-owner-to-buy-wagamama-despite-investor-fears\/"},"modified":"2018-11-28T15:32:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T15:32:23","slug":"frankie-bennys-owner-to-buy-wagamama-despite-investor-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/frankie-bennys-owner-to-buy-wagamama-despite-investor-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankie &#038; Benny&#8217;s owner to buy Wagamama despite investor fears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Wagamama restaurant\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/1327B\/production\/_104095487_wagamama3_getty.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The Restaurant Group will go ahead with its \u00a3550m deal to buy Wagamama despite objections from several major investors.<\/p>\n<p>The firm, which owns chains including Frankie &amp; Benny and Garfunkel&#8217;s, said just over 60% of the votes cast were in favour of the tie-up. <\/p>\n<p>Big-name shareholders had opposed the deal over concerns about price and debt levels for the Restaurant Group. <\/p>\n<p>Shares in the company sank almost 13% on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p>Debbie Hewitt, chairman of the Restaurant Group, said it was pleased that the majority of shareholders had approved the acquisition and rights issue, which would create &#8220;significant long-term value&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She added: &#8220;The acquisition of Wagamama creates a raft of new opportunities for us to capitalise on in the months and years ahead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investegate.co.uk\/restaurant-group-plc--rtn-\/rns\/proposed-acquisition-of-wagamama-and-rights-issue\/201810300700085964F\/\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">The group, which also owns the Coast to Coast and Chiquitos chains, agreed to buy <\/a>Wagamama in late October and wants to expand the chain. <\/p>\n<p>It said Wagamama, which has more than 190 restaurants, has outperformed the UK&#8217;s casual dining market despite a consumer spending slowdown that has forced some chains to close outlets.  <\/p>\n<p>But shareholders including Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) and Columbia Threadneedle Investments had opposed the takeover. <\/p>\n<p>They said the deal is too expensive given it values Wagamama at more than 13 times its enterprise value before interest and other costs. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">What is Wagamama?<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">First branch opened in Bloomsbury, Central London, 1992<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Inspired by Japanese noodle bars <\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Pioneered communal bench seated tables<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Has 133 outlets in UK<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Total of 196 outlets includes restaurants in the US, New Zealand, Middle East, Romania and Croatia<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Inspired a short story &#8211; After Wagamama but Mostly Before, by Toby Litt<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Some also warned it could push the Restaurant Group&#8217;s debt to risky levels. <\/p>\n<p>It plans to pay \u00a3357m in cash and raise \u00a3315m in a deeply discounted rights issue.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Pirc said the &#8220;risks and adverse implications for shareholders appear too great to overlook&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Restaurant chains have struggled recently, with Byron, Jamie&#8217;s Italian and Prezzo among those to have closed branches and shed staff.<\/p>\n<p>Reasons for the downturn include higher raw material costs, partly due to the weaker pound since the Brexit vote, waning consumer spending power and higher business rates. <\/p>\n<p>However, the Restaurant Group has said Wagamama has a &#8220;strong competitive advantage&#8221; as it is three times the size of its nearest rival and is the only big pan-Asian brand concept with scale in the UK. The chain is owned by private equity firms Duke Street and Hutton Collins. <\/p>\n<p>About two thirds of Wagamama&#8217;s directly-operated and franchised restaurants are in the UK, and its most-recent figures show same-store sales growth of 9.6%.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, shares in The Restaurant Group have fallen close to 30% since the deal was first announced on 30 October. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46369731\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images The Restaurant Group will go ahead with its \u00a3550m deal to buy Wagamama despite objections from several major investors. The firm, which owns chains including Frankie &amp; Benny and Garfunkel&#8217;s, said just over 60% of the votes cast were in favour of the tie-up. Big-name shareholders had opposed the deal over &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}