Geneva's Mont Blanc McDonald's sports the new look

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The latest company to leave the UK and move to Switzerland is fast food giant McDonald’s, which will shift its European head office to Geneva later in 2009, the Tribune de Geneve reported late Friday. European president Denis Hennequin and a small team of possibly a dozen people will make the move. The Tribune says the company will be housed in the former offices of Bank Mirabaud on Boulevard du Théâtre, but the company has said only that details will be announced closer to the date of the move.

The UK’s Telegraph newspaper links the move to a change in the UK’s “taxation of foreign profits linked to intellectual property rights such as patents and trademarks” but it notes that the company stresses its tax rate will remain virtually unchanged.

The Wall Street Journal quotes McDonald’s spokesperson Ed Petter as saying that “we now operate in more than 40 markets in Europe, including the Baltics and Russia, and this move, which has been planned since last year, allows us to align matters connected with our intellectual property within our business in Europe.”

The franchise group’s European business overtook its home base US business in 2008, and by May 2009 was growing at a rate of 7.6 percent, compared to 2.8 percent in the US. Hennequin has seen a makeover of the company-owned McDonald’s restaurants, which cost it $800 million in 2008. Its new look in restaurants is credited with part of the company’s strong European growth.

Other multinationals that have moved or will soon be moving key European offices to the Lake Geneva area in the past couple years include Cadbury-Schweppes, Yahoo, Cisco, Chiquita, Ferring, ADM and Parker Hannifin.

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