Marco Pierre White has become a director and stakeholder in Sugar Reef and Red Cube, the London restaurants jointly owned by Mark Fuller and Jimmy Lahoud.

The move comes only a week after White paid more than £5m for the rights to use his name independently from that of Forte, with whom he had a joint venture, and is likely to fuel speculation about White's business plans.

Sugar Reef and the newly launched Red Cube (Caterer, 5 October, page 10) belong to White Star Line, the banner company launched by Lahoud and White in 1999.

All the restaurants are individually owned.