McDonald's Catches Up With Consumer,Industry Trends

We serve the vast majority of the population in all our markets,McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook,who is British,told CNBC.There are some who come in for a burger,but we can also innovate at the premium end of the menu.What we're seeing is,incremental purchase of all day breakfast food.It's growing margins and generating a lot of enthusiasm amongst our customers and out team.We have very ambitious plans in tech and across the whole area of helping to make consumers' lives more convenient and more fun.*
In relation to McDonald's as a company,we made the conscious decision to go one dollar above the minimum wage.With health care inflation,it's tough.That's why we've got to increase the bottom line.We're seeing a reduction in crew turnover.That improves the customer experience.*
We're going to cage-free eggs in the US.It's going to take us 10 years to get there because of supply.We use two billion eggs a year.*
Our owner-operators are wonderful,an animated bunch that helps us make the decisions,and we help them make their decisions.When we took the all day breakfast,we got a 98% approval by the owner-operators.Traditional industries are being transformed,and we should not be blind to that.We have a 1+ billion dollar delivery business in Asia.We are building up our digital programme to offer more ordering and payment options and customer loyalty programmes.A number of our regions have been selling mozzarella sticks and they do sell well,Mr.Easterbrook observed.*
McDonald's (MCD)

Real Estate Branding Part 2:Inside Realogy

Realogy is a vast conglomerate of real estate-related franchises,comprising Century 21,the TRG Title Resource Group,ERA,Sotheby's International Realty,Coldwell Banker,Coldwell Banker Commercial,Oncor International,Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate,NRT Residential Brokerage,Cartus and The Corcoran Group.Based in Parsipanny,New Jersey,Realogy has 14,500 offices in 93 countries,employing 268,000 sales asociates.About half of Realogy's franchises are Century 21 offices.
Realogy's business model is called the "Value Circle."This circle of franchises provides excellent cross-selling opportunities,Realogy says,while enabling customers to enjoy the convenience of a single-source solution for all their real estate needs:franchising,settlement,relocation,brokerage,mortgage.
Richard A. Smith is President and CEO of Realogy.Without question,it is a dominant force in the real estate markets today.At some point,Realogy may well be spun off back to public ownership again,as is the habit of private equity holders such as Apollo Management Group L.P.It could possibly be broken up into its constituent units at that time.

Real Estate Branding:Century 21

One of the first businessmen to perceive the power of branding and franchising,Arthur E. Bartlett,died in Coronado,California recently.Mr.Bartlett,76,co-founded Century 21,a real estate franchiser,with Marshall Fisher in 1971.Bartlett and Fisher encouraged local agents to come under the Century 21 brand,in order to build and participate in the prestige of a big name brand.Consumers have more confidence in the big brands,Mr.Bartlett observed.That applies as much to real estate as anything else.Franchising gives the small businessman a way to survive in our brand-conscious world.
Century 21 established itself by franchising to experienced agents,rather than recruiting novices.This gave it a considerable edge in the marketplace.The company was sold to TransWorld Corporation in 1978.Eventually,it was folded into Realogy,which is a multi-national,diversified real estate enterprise within a private equity portfolio.Realogy traded briefly on the NYSE,but was quickly acquired by Apollo Management Group,L.P.,a leading private equity firm.