CHICAGO _ McDonald's will take more charges in the recently completed third quarter related to restructuring and selling more of its restaurants to franchisees.
The chain, which is set to move its headquarters to Chicago from its suburbs in 2018, said late Thursday it expects to book $130 million in pre-tax charges related to those moves for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. In the quarter before, it took charges of $235 million related to those initiatives and costs associated with its planned move downtown.
The company said there will be more charges to come in future quarters too. The world's largest burger chain had previously announced plans to hand over some 4,000 additional restaurants to franchisees by the end of 2018, and cut about $500 million in general and administrative costs by the end of next year. Most of that savings is expected to be seen by the end of the next year. McDonald's has about 14,000 restaurants in the U.S. and 36,000 worldwide.
McDonald's is selling more of its restaurants to franchisees to reduce the corporation's liability and create more profitable restaurants. Restaurants run by outside operators tend to report far better sales margins than those operated by the company.
McDonald's is set to release earnings for the third quarter on Oct. 21.
