|
McDonald's profits fall
|
 |
January 24, 2001: 12:05 p.m. ET
World's largest restaurant chain earns 34 cents a share in 4Q
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - McDonald's Corp. reported lower quarterly profits Wednesday for the first time in 2-1/2 years as the scare over mad cow disease hurt its results in Europe.
The company's 7 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings was a bit worse than Wall Street had expected, and its stock sank 4 percent on the news.
The world's largest restaurant chain said it earned $452 million, or 34 cents a share, in the quarter, down from $486 million, or 35 cents a share a year earlier. Wall Street had been looking for profits of 35 cents a share, according to First Call, which tracks analysts' forecasts.
McDonald's (MCD: Research, Estimates) sales rose 6 percent to $3.6 billion in the quarter while systemwide sales including affiliates grew 2 percent to $9.9 billion, the company said in a statement. But sales fell 9 percent in Europe.
`These results were tempered by the recent decline in consumer confidence in the European beef supply," Chairman Jack Greenberg said, according to the Associated Press. The first quarter of 2001, Greenberg said, also is proving "very challenging" due to "continuing consumer confidence issues about European beef."
The recent outbreak of mad cow disease hit McDonald's sales particularly hard in France, where it first surfaced, as well as Germany, Spain and Italy, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company said.
McDonald's stock, one of 30 in the Dow Jones industrial average, slid $1.25 to $31.63.
-- from staff and wire reports 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
