Charlie perhaps acquires independent group of restaurants (5)
I believe the answer is:
chain
'group of restaurants' is the definition.
'chain' can be an answer for 'group' (chain is a kind of group). I am not sure about the 'of restaurants' bit.
'charlie perhaps acquires independent' is the wordplay.
'charlie perhaps' becomes 'chan' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'acquires' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'chan' going around 'i' is 'CHAIN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for chain that I've seen before include "Fetter" , "Twenty-two yards" , "Succession" , "several supermarkets" , "Event series" .)