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McD's renews stock buyback
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September 28, 1998: 9:48 a.m. ET
Fast food chain to repurchase $3.5B of stock, 9 percent stake in company
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Fast good giant McDonald's Corp. said Monday it will buy back $3.5 billion worth of its common stock over the next three years.
The Oakbrook, Ill.-based Dow component said it will purchase the shares using existing cash flow by year-end 2001. The buyback program is 75 percent larger than the $2 billion share buyback the company completed last month, and represents about a 9 percent stake in the $39 billion company.
The company also said it expects to meet investors' third-quarter expectations.
In July, McDonald's warned investors that difficult earnings comparisons in the second half of the year make it unlikely the company will be able to maintain its first-half profitability levels.
"We believe that common share repurchase is an excellent means of providing shareholder value," said Jack M. Greenberg, company president and chief executive. "And McDonald's has repurchased 152 million shares of common stock for approximately $4.8 billion over the past 10 years. Because we believe that McDonald's stock price has been particularly attractive recently, we have already purchased nearly $300 million of stock under the new program."
He added the company's strong global business and growing cash flow enables McDonald's to up the stakes in its repurchase program and proceed with plans to open another 2,000 restaurants per year in the next several years.
Shares of McDonald's (MCD) closed Friday at 57-1/4 on the New York Stock Exchange. 
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McDonald's
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