Consumer Business Recap: McDonald’s WOES, J.C. Penney SHOCKERS

More woes for McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) at the Jefferies Global Consumer Conference, as the fast food titan warns that discretionary visits by customers could be difficult to grow at a brisk pace. Perhaps for diversion, MCD’s then presented a slide showing that it intends to add 1,300 new restaurants in 2012. The problem could be the sheer size of McDonald’s customer base: when you already have a zillion of them, increasing that number noticeably is indeed a daunting task.

Marriott (NYSE:MAR) intends to shell out $2 billion over the next three years for opening hotels, plus $600 million for the renovation of existing sites, as a part of its worldwide expansion program. Specifically, MAR is planning to double its number of hotels in China to more than 100, while it takes advantage of the boom in international tourism, and of the country’s middle class.

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What is going on at J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP)? The surprise departure of the company’s president, Michael Francis, has caught observers unawares, given the announcement’s timing and the fact that he was expected to be a key participant in JCP’s stores’ image turnaround. Deutsche Bank referred to the news as “a catastrophic blow” for boosters of the stock, as Francis was considered vital to the store’s recruitment of new brands. DB keeps its Hold on the shares.

Toyota (NYSE:TM) is increasing domestic capacity in Japan from 3.1 million to 3.6 million vehicles, says a report from Nikkei. Additionally, TM released the news Monday that it might construct a new facility in China, which would push capacity there to near 1 million vehicles.

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