McDonald : Q4 Earnings Transcript- PDF 301 KB

Corrected Transcript

28-Jan-2021

McDonald's Corp. (MCD)

Q4 2020 Earnings Call

	Total Pages: 19
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McDonald's Corp. (MCD)	Corrected Transcript
Q4 2020 Earnings Call	28-Jan-2021

CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS

Mike Cieplak	Kevin M. Ozan
Corporate Vice President-Investor Relations Officer, McDonald's Corp.	Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President, McDonald's Corp.
Chris Kempczinski
President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, McDonald's Corp.

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OTHER PARTICIPANTS

John Glass	Jared Garber
Analyst, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC	Analyst, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC
Eric Gonzalez	John Ivankoe
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.	Analyst, JPMorgan Securities LLC
David E. Tarantino	Andrew Charles
Analyst, Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc.	Analyst, Cowen and Company
Dennis Geiger	Jeffrey A. Bernstein
Analyst, UBS Securities LLC	Analyst, Barclays Capital, Inc.
David Palmer	Lauren Silberman
Analyst, Evercore ISI	Analyst, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
Jon Tower	Gregory R. Francfort
Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities LLC	Analyst, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research
Christopher Carril
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets LLC

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McDonald's Corp. (MCD)	Corrected Transcript
Q4 2020 Earnings Call	28-Jan-2021

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION SECTION

Operator: Hello and welcome to McDonald's Fourth Quarter 2020 Investor Conference Call. At the request of McDonald's Corporation, this conference is being recorded. Following today's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session for investors. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Cieplak, Investor Relations Officer for McDonald's Corporation. Mr. Cieplak, you may begin.

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Mike Cieplak

Corporate Vice President-Investor Relations Officer, McDonald's Corp.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call this morning are: President and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Kempczinski; and Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Ozan.

I want to remind everyone that the forward-looking statements in our earnings release and 8-K filing also apply to our comments on the call today. Both of those documents are available on our website, as are reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures mentioned on today's call with their corresponding GAAP measures.

Following the prepared remarks this morning, we will open the queue for your questions. I ask that you please limit yourself to one question. And if you have more than one, please ask your most pressing question first and then re-enter the queue. Today's conference call is being webcast and is also being recorded for replay via our website.

Now, I'll turn it over to Chris.

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Chris Kempczinski

President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, McDonald's Corp.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. At our Investor Update in November, I talked about the start of something new for McDonald's. It was a moment in which we proudly embraced both what we were going to do to write the next chapter of McDonald's growth and how we were going to do it.

We shared our new growth strategy, Accelerating the Arches, and articulated a clear vision of where we intend to make a difference in a world in need of community and connection. We also acknowledged that between a once in a century pandemic, a record economic downturn and profound societal challenges, it was the most difficult year McDonald's has seen.

While a new year brings new hope, the issues and uncertainty that emerged last year persist. As I reflect on all that has happened even since November, I come back to something Ray Kroc once said. Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out. Through all the adversity of the last year, we have seen and done important things that reinforce why we are on the right path.

We have seen the incredible courage and resilience of our McFamily. We know how to run great restaurants. Our long legacy of execution prowess comes from the talent of our teams. From franchisees to supply chain partners and employees, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that 2020 will be remembered as one of the most challenging, yet inspiring, moments in the long history of this great brand. By making safety and service a priority,

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McDonald's Corp. (MCD)	Corrected Transcript
Q4 2020 Earnings Call	28-Jan-2021

by implementing the largest and fastest rollout of new safety protocols in McDonald's history and partnering with the Mayo Clinic to review and refine our approach, by maintaining supply without interruption, by simplifying our menu, and by continuing to put our customers and people first, all three legs of our stool embodied our values in the best possible way, by living them every day.

And our customers have noticed. Global brand scores for consumer confidence in eating at McDonald's have risen significantly since the start of the pandemic. We've seen the love people have for McDonald's and our food. Even while the pandemic forced lockdowns and prevented customers from dining in most of our restaurants, we achieved over $90 billion of systemwide sales last year. Tens of millions of people every day continue to choose McDonald's for our drive-thru, contactless delivery, takeaway and curbside pickup, with more and more customers using our app. And that commitment showed. Despite resurgences of the virus and restrictions on restaurants in the fourth quarter, we continue to see sequential improvement as we delivered our strongest quarter of the year, recovering nearly 99% of 2019 global comp sales.

Global comp sales for the full year were down 7.7%. While there were challenges across markets, some of our larger markets achieved positive comp sales for the full year, including the US, Japan and Australia, and that was on top of strong momentum coming into 2020. US delivered its sixth consecutive year of positive comps. The average US franchisee restaurant operating cash flow reached an all-time high in 2020, up nearly $40,000 over 2019, and up about $100,000 over the last three years. Japan has achieved five consecutive years of positive comp sales. And Australia posted its seventh consecutive year of positive comps. We have seen the ability that McDonald's has to survive hard times and to do so while consistently investing to support both the short and long- term.

One thing I admire most about our system is that, no matter how difficult times get, we never stop thinking about what's next. The impacts of COVID on our industry have been significant. It's been tough. We were sober and realistic from early on, while remaining committed to helping every operator and partner survive this crisis. We took prudent, quick action designed to prevent not a single Owner/Operator from failing due to the pandemic, why we bolstered our cash position early in the year to provide nearly $1 billion in financial liquidity to support franchisees.

We also maintained our view on the long-term as we invested $1.6 billion of CapEx to open nearly 1,000 new restaurants globally and modernize another 900 in the US, provided $200 million incremental marketing support to accelerate the recovery. And together with our franchisees, we invested over $1 billion in technology in digital initiatives, all of which will help drive our next chapter of growth.

We've also seen our commitment to feed and foster communities take on new meaning this past year. There are so many incredible stories about how the McDonald's System has stepped up to be there for our neighbors and communities this past year. To name a few, together with our franchisees, we provided more than 12 million thank you meals to First Responders and health care workers in the US. We donated extra food within our supply chain to communities in need around the world. We gave millions of surgical masks to communities to help protect first responders. And in November, we announced our commitment to donate $100 million over five years to help families with sick children through Ronald McDonald House Charities.

We were on the ground, working to help local communities solve problems while also looking for ways to use our size and scale to make an even bigger impact. It was an important reminder that brands like ours can help provide stability, and even hope, during difficult times.

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