We revise our Q1E tax-rate projection to 28.5% (from 24.8%). This change has the effect of lowering our Q1E and our full-year 2019E EPS estimates by $0.09 each, to $1.71 and $8.01, respectively. (Our full-year 2020E EPS forecast remains unchanged at $8.75.)
This past September, McDonald’s (MCD; Buy) announced that it would reorganize its business into three segments (U.S., International Operated Markets, and International Developmental Licensed Markets). Much more recently, McDonald’s provided some historical information — including same-store sales information — about these new business segments. Armed with this new information, with this report we introduce our same-store sales projections for 2019E and 2020E for the International Operated Markets and International Developmental Licensed Markets segments. As of this writing, there appear to be no sell-side consensus numbers available for these business segments, due to a lack of enough sell-side analysts having published such forecasts.
We briefly note the following tidbits regarding McDonald’s (MCD; Buy) and Taco Bell (owned by Yum Brands [YUM; Buy]):