Oasis pressures Restaurant Group to sell up

Activist hedge fund Oasis Management is threatening to dethrone the boss of Wagamama’s owner. The Hong Kong-based investor is said to want to put the Restaurant Group in a “virtuous circle” where it can “reduce debt, reduce interest, resume dividends … get a higher stock rating, better market cap [and] attract better people”. The warning comes after the Restaurant Group rejected Oasis’s requests for a strategic review of the company led by an independent bank and for a board seat when the fund went public with its 6.5% stake last month. The Restaurant Group, which also owns the Frankie & Benny’s chain, could offload its 80-site pub business Brunning and Price, which Oasis believes could fetch £160m for its freeholds or upwards of £250m for the entire business. The FT (£)