BUZZ-Restaurant Group: best day in 9 months after "heavy-lifting" pays off
** Restaurant Group (Other OTC: RSTGF - news) 's shares shares up 10.4 pct, set for biggest one-day rise since end-May after slight FY beat
** Co's underlying pretax profit fell to 56.7 mln pounds in the year ended Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) . 31 from 77.1 mln pounds in 2016
** Analysts expected PBT of 55.9 million pounds, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news)
** "We expect to benefit from our strategic initiatives gaining further traction as the year progresses," co says
** Liberum: "The scale of the heavy-lifting in 2017 should not be under-estimated; RTN is in a substantially better position now than this time last year. The fact FY17 has come in marginally ahead of expectations and FY dividend maintained is testament to management's decisive actions" (RM (LSE: RM.L - news) :harish.bhaskar.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)