McDonald’s on Wednesday announced new details as part of its long-term growth strategy, which will include a focus on upgrading restaurants and staff training, at an investor day at the corporate headquarters in Chicago.

The fast-food giant announced its NEXT growth and productivity strategy in June and outlined plans to implement changes throughout its system.

McDonald’s said that to speed up the modernization of restaurants, deployment of technology and other operational improvements, it plans to provide about $8.5 billion in NEXT partnering support for franchisees through 2036, with roughly $5 billion provided through 2030. 

The NEXT support for franchisees will include a combination of capital support and rent relief.

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The support comes with a target of about 250 basis points of gross restaurant-level efficiency improvements amounting to about $100,000 in annual cash flow benefits for the average restaurant, with the company saying the majority of that would benefit the restaurant’s bottom line over time.

McDonald’s announcement noted that the restaurant component of the plan aims to boost growth and productivity through simplified operations, elevated execution, modernized restaurant design and deploying generative AI-enabled ArchIQ at scale.

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The company also announced a multiyear training program called “Make it Golden” that will begin on Founder’s Day, Oct. 5, which aims to improve customer service to create more consistency for patrons and increase repeat visits.

“McDonald’s has the unmatched scale, customer insights, brand loyalty, and operational capabilities to not only adapt to the next wave of change in our industry, but to turn it into an advantage,” said McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski. “That’s what McDonald’s > NEXT is about: to be the first choice for more customers, more often – while making our restaurants stronger and easier to run.” 

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Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
MCD	MCDONALD’S CORP.	236.78	-13.59	-5.43%

“We are confident that executing across the key components of NEXT will unlock stronger restaurant economics, generate attractive returns for the Company, our franchisees and shareholders, and increase capacity to keep investing in growth,” Kempczinski added.

McDonald’s announcement also included new market share targets, calling for 1.5 percentage points of growth in both chicken and beverages by 2030, while also maintaining the company’s leadership in beef market share.

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Sales growth from unit expansion is also targeted to contribute nearly 2.5% to system-wide sales growth in 2027, moderating to about 2% by 2030.

The UK economy will grow by 1.1 per cent this year, according to new forecasts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), up from the 0.9 per cent it projected in June.

The Paris-based organisation said in its interim outlook, published today, that output had held up better than expected in the face of the US-Iran war. It pointed to “solid domestic demand growth in the second quarter” of the year.

The OECD said household spending could get a further boost from government measures to cut taxes on energy bills and cap bus fares.

The 1.1 per cent estimate is the joint second highest in the G7, behind the United States on 2.2 per cent and level with Germany, which has begun to recover from three years of industrial stagnation.

Slower growth and lower inflation

The OECD expects UK growth to slow to 1 per cent in 2027, down from the 1.1 per cent it forecast in June. When it last published forecasts, the organisation had cut its UK growth projection to below 1 per cent for this year.

It also lowered its inflation projection for this year from an average of 3.7 per cent to 3.1 per cent. For next year it expects inflation of 2.6 per cent, higher than the 2.4 per cent it forecast in the summer.

UK GDP figures and measures of private sector activity and household sentiment have improved in recent months, despite global oil prices rising to between $90 and $100 a barrel since August. Economists have warned that higher oil and gas prices will add to inflation and cost-of-living pressures, and that spending and activity are likely to be squeezed during the winter months.

The OECD said British consumers were among those “dedicating a higher proportion of their spending towards fuel, amid very rapid growth in gasoline and diesel prices since the onset of the conflict”.

Emma Reynolds, chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Despite unprecedented pressures and conflict in both the Middle East and in Europe, the UK economy is showing strong resilience. We had the fastest growth in the G7 in the first half of the year and we are starting the big, long-term changes needed to create good jobs and growth in every postcode.”

The OECD said it expects no change this year to UK interest rates, which stand at 3.75 per cent.

Last week the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent and warned it could tighten policy for the first time in three years before the end of 2026, should consumer prices breach 4 per cent. Governor Andrew Bailey said a rate rise was likely if the Iran war went on. Annual inflation is currently running at 3.1 per cent.

The OECD said the picture for the UK and world economy was “heavily dependent on whether a durable resolution to the Middle East conflict is achieved”.

“Energy prices have recently risen again amidst intensified disruptions to production and exports in the Gulf economies. Elevated refining margins due to production bottlenecks are placing additional upward pressure on consumer prices and business costs. Prices for some agricultural commodities have also risen markedly in recent months, partly due to the impact of extreme weather on supply,” the interim report said.

The organisation raised its global growth projection from 2.8 per cent to 2.9 per cent. It said “sizeable oil inventories, additional supply from outside the Gulf economies and discretionary government support measures all helped to cushion the impact on the global economy”.

Its biggest downgrade was to Canada, where projected growth fell from 1.2 per cent to 0.9 per cent after the US imposed new tariffs on its neighbour.

France was also downgraded, to 0.4 per cent, the lowest in the G7. The OECD’s forecast comes as the EU’s second-largest economy faces pressure to reduce its rising budget deficit before presidential elections next year.

Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr said on Wednesday that the central bank took an important step last week to “recalibrate” short-term borrowing costs in its effort to bring down inflation, and signalled that further rate hikes are likely needed, Reuters reported.

“Risks to achieving our inflation target have increased, while risks to the labour market have receded,” Barr said in prepared remarks for a Chicago Fed housing affordability conference.

He noted that US economic growth remains strong and the labour market solid, but inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% goal and not clearly headed lower. “In my base case, further policy adjustments are likely needed to ensure inflation comes down to target in a timely fashion,” he said.

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In a unanimous decision last week, Fed policymakers raised the central bank’s policy rate to a range of 3.75%-4.00%. Sixteen of 18 officials signalled that at least one more hike would likely be needed before year-end, according to a Reuters report.

Barr’s remarks suggest he sees the case for at least two further increases, though he did not specify a timeline.
His willingness to be specific about the rate path stands in contrast to Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, who has declined to offer any forward guidance on the matter.”In my view, given changes to the economy, we were out of position, and we made an adjustment in the right direction,” Barr added, referring to last week’s quarter-point hike. “We want to support sustainable, durable growth in support of maximum employment, and price stability is crucial to that.”

Barr’s comments on monetary policy were brief, with most of his speech devoted to housing affordability, a problem he said has been compounded by a shortage of supply and elevated mortgage rates. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the US rose to 7.12% last week, its highest level in more than two years, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

(Disclaimer: This article is based on inputs from agencies. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The majority of companies raising equity for the first time are now based outside London, according to research from Beauhurst Insights and the law firm Penningtons Manches Cooper, with the capital’s share of first-time deals falling to 44.6 per cent in the first half of 2026.

London’s share of all first-time equity deals had already dropped to 49.1 per cent in 2025, the researchers said. The last time more first-time fundraisings were completed outside the capital than inside it was in 2022, according to Beauhurst.

Companies using artificial intelligence captured 58.6 per cent of the value of all first-time deals in the six months to June, the study found. That compares with 32.9 per cent in 2025 and 17 per cent in 2024.

The 2,730 start-ups that sold shares for the first time in 2025 raised a total of £4.4bn, an increase of 11.7 per cent, according to the report.

However, 30 per cent more companies secured external capital for the first time, and the researchers said investors had committed less money per company and at lower valuations. Pre-investment valuations fell by 20.3 per cent to £1.5m last year, and the average has since slipped to £1.45m.

The average deal size fell from £2m to £1.7m. The median deal stood at £290,000, a gap the researchers attributed to the effect of several very large first-time fundraisings.

Henry Whorwood, managing director at Beauhurst Insights, said the increased volume of first-time equity raises reversed a long-term decline. He attributed that decline to venture capital firms increasingly needing to support their existing portfolio companies with more capital.

Mr Whorwood said the rise of AI had driven the reversal, with a wave of companies seeking to exploit the technology.

London leads on AI rounds

Although the capital’s overall share has fallen, London completed more AI first rounds than the rest of the UK combined, at 392 against 268, the research found.

London’s 60 per cent share of AI fundraising rounds was 11 percentage points ahead of its share of the market as a whole. The researchers said this reflected the concentration of investors and support services for technology companies in the capital.

Separate Barclays and Beauhurst figures published in July showed that UK equity investment rose to £14.4bn in the first half of 2026, with London accounting for the bulk of the money raised.

Outside London, first-time fundraising in the West Midlands nearly doubled in 2025, according to the report. Northern Ireland recorded a rise of 73 per cent and Scotland 60 per cent. London-based deal volumes rose by 27 per cent.

Largest first-time rounds

The report pointed to several very large first-time fundraisings. Isomorphic Labs, the London-based, Google-backed start-up that uses AI for drug discovery, raised £464m in March 2025.

Edinburgh-based Fidra Energy, which has developed a battery energy storage system, secured £445m from its owner, the US institutional investor EIG, alongside the UK’s National Wealth Fund.

In the first half of this year, the £814m of first-time equity raised by Ineffable Intelligence represented 39 per cent of the value of all first-time deals, according to the research.

The London-headquartered AI company was founded in late 2025 by David Silver, a computer science professor at University College London and a former senior AI specialist at Google’s DeepMind labs in London. The British Business Bank was among the backers of the Ineffable Intelligence round.

Separate Tracxn data published in July found that investors were writing fewer, larger cheques in the first half across UK tech.