In 1954, Ray Kroc a salesman, who sold milk shake makers, visited a McDonald’s hamburger stand in California that used eight milk shake makers at a time. He had never seen so many people served so quickly. That day he pitched the idea to open up several similar restaurants to the owners Dick and Mac McDonald. His plan was that if they opened up more stores, then he could sell eight milk shake makers to each one. When asked who would open the new hamburger stands, Ray Kroc said that he would do it. In 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois, Ray Rroc opened his first restaurant and made $366.12 in revenues on his first day. Now there are nearly 27,000 restaurants and 43 million customers served by 1.5 million employees each day in 119 countries. In 1999 there were 1,790 McDonald’s restaurants opened and 90% of those were outside of the United States. McDonald’s continues to grow extremely fast. They average opening 5 new stores a day and are the largest fast food chain in the world.McDonald’s big sellers are hamburgers and fries. As McDonald’s reaches to the far East, such as, Asia, there is an increase in demand for chicken. “Worldwide McDonald’s fries and our fast service is what brings in the most people,” said Jack M. Greenberg, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of McDonald’s.Over the past five years, McDonald’s stock has had a low of $20.50 in 1996 and a high of $49.55 in 1999. Currently the stock’s price is at $30.12. Johnny Hea, a writer for a magazine called The Street Advisor, wrote an article called “You Want Fries with that?” The article is about how McDonald’s stock is undervalued right now and how it would be a good long-term investment to make .Management believes in reinvesting a significant portion of earnings, given their high returns on equity and assets and their global opportunities. Therefore the McDonald’s per share dividend is ...
