McDonald's Counter In New Store Copyright Joshua Kennon

Dealing with Business Rejection, the McDonald’s Franchise Disclosure Document, and a $114 Million Coffee Fortune

From time to time, I get messages from business owners or entrepreneurs who are discouraged and upset.  Their family, friends, colleagues, bank officers, or suppliers don’t believe in what they are trying to do and they take it personally.  This afternoon, as I sat in a McDonald’s restaurant having coffee and revisiting an excellent book called McDonald’s Behind the Arches that details the historical rise of one of the world’s largest real estate portfolio masquerading as a hamburger chain, I was reminded of a story I first read back in college that I think has a lot of powerful lessons.

McDonald's Black and White Burger Taipei

The Black and White Burgers of McDonald’s Taipei

Long story short, I’ve been looking into Taipei for various reasons and, in the process, discovered that McDonald’s serves limited edition White and Black burgers there.  Besides the fact it warms this American’s heart to know that I’m collecting New Taipei dollars (McDonald’s dividend day was last week and, with the exception of my two sisters, I have practically every member of my family holding shares somewhere, so the deposit is fresh on my mind as I saw it come in across the accounts), I would very much like to try these out of sheer curiosity.

An Academic Example of Cash Flow Differing from Reported Earnings - McDonald's Corporation

A Quick Cash Flow Statement Lesson – A Look at How McDonald’s Real Payout Ratio Is 110%, Not 54% As First Appears

McDonald’s is one of those businesses that I love.  The last time we talked about it was when I wrote the 25 Year Investment Case Study of McDonald’s, and showed how you could have turned $100,000 into anywhere between $1,839,033 and $5,547,089 depending on how you handled dividend reinvestment and the Chipotle split-off back in 2006, and the sorely lacking media coverage of McDonald’s results in February.  No matter which way you look at it, despite periods of overvaluation and undervaluation, alternating with the underlying performance and the emotional moods of shareholders, McDonald’s has been a fantastic company.  It makes its employees and shareholders a lot of money.  It gives society something it wants, whether that be a plain salad with side of fresh fruit and a non-sweetened iced tea or a double cheeseburger with french fries and a Coca-Cola.