Restaurant Group upbeat on expansion as profit jumps

LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Restaurant Group (LSE: RTN.L - news) , including the Frankie & Benny's and Garfunkels chains, posted a 15 percent jump in first-half profit and said it is making good progress with its expansion plans.

The group, which owns more than 400 restaurants and pubs in Britain, reported pretax profit of 30 million pounds ($46.48 million) for the six months to June 30, boosted by improved margins and an 11.5 percent rise in total sales as customer numbers and their average spend increased.

Like-for-like sales were up 5 percent in the first half and up 4.25 percent for the 34 weeks to Aug. 25.

"Our new restaurants are trading ahead of expectations, are on track to deliver high returns and the forward pipeline of new sites to 2015 and beyond is the best we've seen for many years," Chief Executive Andrew Page said in a statement on Friday.

The company has opened 11 restaurants this year and plans to take the total to between 30 and 35 by the end of the year.

Full-year pretax profit are expected to reach 71.35 million pounds, according to the average forecast in a Reuters poll of 12 analysts.

Shares in the company closed at 539 pence on Thursday, up 63 percent on a year ago, valuing the business at about 1 billion pounds.