McDonald's Statement on 1/18/06 Pershing Square Capital Ideas

"Mr. Ackman is clearly passionate about the Company and we respect that. We also appreciate his candor in acknowledging that his previous ideas presented publicly were not workable. But the fact is, with his latest presentation, he has not presented anything fundamentally new beyond what we've discussed with him previously and what we have evaluated.

"We continue to believe that an IPO of McOpCo will not deliver the value already being created by our current strategy. We also believe there are better and simpler ways to accomplish the McOpCo goals articulated. McDonald's is always evaluating ways to improve the system and we have already said that improving the performance of McOpCo, especially outside of the U.S., is one of our priorities. We are working towards that goal. We will share more details during our year-end earnings call on January 24, and we will be happy to address at that time any questions concerning the proposal presented today.

"We remain committed to our 'Plan to Win,' to ensuring alignment with our franchisees and suppliers, to building and delivering value for shareholders, and to growing our business by being better, not just bigger. Our recent December sales release, which highlighted McDonald's 32nd consecutive month of global comparable sales increases, is evidence of this commitment.

"Our 'Plan to Win' continues to create value for all of our stakeholders, and has returned more than $4.2 billion to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks since 2002. In addition, as previously reported, in 2006 and 2007 combined McDonald's expects to return roughly another $5 billion to $6 billion to shareholders on top of the $4.2 billion."

-- Mary Kay Shaw, Vice President of Investor Relations, McDonald's

Corporation

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SOURCE: McDonald's Corporation

CONTACT: Investors, Mary Kay Shaw, +1-630-623-7559, or Media, Anna
Rozenich, +1-630-623-7316, both of McDonald's Corporation

Web site: http://www.mcdonalds.com/