On Monday, November 20, 2023, McDonald's announced that it planned to buy Carlyle’s stake in its China business including Chinese mainland, Hongkong and Macau, increasing its minority share from 20% to 48% ownership. A consortium led by Chinese state-backed conglomerate Citic will maintain its controlling stake of 52%. The acquisition is contingent on regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024.

Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s President and Chief Executive Officer, made some positive comments “Our strategic partnership with CITIC and Carlyle has been extremely successful in growing McDonald’s presence in the region since it began. China is now our second largest market; we've doubled our restaurants to more than 5,500 since 2017. We believe there is no better time to simplify our structure, given the tremendous opportunity to capture increased demand and further benefit from our fastest growing market’s long-term potential.”

Yichen Zhang, chairman and CEO of CITIC Capital and chairman of McDonald's China also made some positive comments “As McDonald’s China’s controlling shareholder, we are thrilled by McDonald’s Corporation’s continued commitment to our long-term partnership and the China market. As we reach towards our goal of 10,000+ restaurants by 2028, we are more confident than ever in our ability to serve the Chinese consumer with McDonald’s iconic taste.”

According to Brand Value (China)Network, in 2017, McDonald sold its businesses in mainland China and Hong Kong for $2.1 billion to Citic, a state-owned conglomerate, and the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. The deal gives Citic and Carlyle franchise rights for 20 years. Citic and its investment arm, Citic Capital, had a controlling stake of 52 percent, while Carlyle took 28 percent. McDonald’s got the remaining 20 percent.

According to Brand Value Network, McDonald has more than 40,000 stores in over 100 countries with 1.9 million employees and 60 million customers daily. According to China Brand Value Evaluation Standard, McDonald’s is one of the most successful restaurant Chains and a model of global service industry, so the growth potential in China is absolutely massive.

In 1990, McDonald’s opened its first store in Shenzhen, China. Two years later in 1992, McDonald’s opened “the World’s largest store” in Beijing, which had 700 seats, 20 cash registers and served 40,000 customers on the opening day. As of February, 2023, McDonald’s has about 4,500 stores in China and in the year of 2022, it opened 700 new stores. In the year of 2023, McDonald’s planned to open an additional 900 new stores, in other words, the burger giant is planning to open a new store in China about every 10 hours. According to brand value network, 45% of its fast food industry revenue in China comes from its first tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Much of the rest of China remains untapped, but now McDonald’s see opportunities in secondary and tertiary cities which means there’s a lot of runways for growth.

On the ranking of “The 3rd Daguan·Keweiwei World Brand Value Top 900” released on March 18, 2023,  McDonald's brand value was 163.721 billion RMB, ranking the 158th.

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作者：杨瑞安