McDonald’s Corp. on Friday announced that it has reached an agreement to sell virtually all of its 1,600 restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean to an Argentine businessman who has run the hamburger giant’s outlets in Argentina for 20 years.
Under the deal, Woods Staton, who was president of McDonald’s Latin America South division until last year, will assume ownership of nearly 1,100 McDonald’s-owned restaurants and become the franchiser for 500 restaurants operated by other licensees.
Staton and a group of investors will pay $700 million to assume responsibility for the region, which accounts for about 1 percent of McDonald’s gross operating income. The investors include Capital International in New York; Gavea Investimentos, a Brazilian investment bank; and DLJ South American Partners, a private-equity fund half-owned by Credit Suisse.
The Oak Brook-based company made the announcement in conjunction with the release of its first-quarter earnings. It said net income rose 22 percent, to $762.4 million, or 62 cents a share, on revenue of $5.46 billion. A year ago it earned $625.3 million, or 49 cents a share, on revenue of $4.91 billion.
FranchiseBrief.com on April 24th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
that’s a lot of big macs for this price, haha