McD’s May Franchise Additional Company Outlets

Chicago Business:

McDonald’s Corp. has boosted the number of company-owned restaurants it may sell to franchisees by 800, the company said Thursday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The losses the company would incur as a result of the moves could be “significant,� McDonald’s says in the filing. Losses would occur because the company expects the proceeds from the sales to fall short of the 2,300 restaurants’ book value, which the company estimated at $3 billion.

The company had previously said it was considering franchising 1,500 company-owned restaurants, a number first announced in January, a McDonald’s spokeswoman said. Of the 30,893 McDonald’s worldwide, about 27%, or 8,243, are company-owned, the spokeswoman said. So far this year, the company has divested 121 restaurants in four markets, incurring pretax losses of $30 million. The four markets were Bulgaria, Honduras, Nicaragua and Thailand. The spokeswoman declined to identify the other markets the company is seeking to exit.