The ratings on Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald's Corp. reflect Standard&Poor's Ratings Services' expectation that the company will continue to perform strongly with profit growth from new restaurants and positive comparable-store sales. Conversely, we do not anticipate credit metric enhancement given likely capital spending and returns to shareholders. We assess McDonald's business risk as "strong", which reflects its global market position and that it has significantly outperformed other quick-service restaurant operators in the past few years. Many competitors experienced meaningful same-store sales declines in the second half of 2009 and first half of 2010. However, McDonald's remained positive on a quarterly basis. Although unemployment is still high, we feel that overall demand in the quick service industry has stabilized
