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. However, we do not anticipate credit metric enhancement given likely capital spending and returns to shareholders. Thus, we continue to assess its financial risk as modest. We assess McDonald's business risk as strong, which reflects its global market position and the fact that it has significantly outperformed other quick-service restaurant operators in the past few years. McDonald's first-quarter and 2010 results were slightly better than our expectations and were notably better than most of the quick-service restaurant industry. Many competitors experienced meaningful same-store sales declines over the
