McDonald's, the world's biggest fast food chain, has reportedly rejected a plan put forward by a major shareholder that called for the company to restructure, form a new company-held restaurant unit and sell a 20% stake to the public.

McDonald's, the world's biggest fast food chain, has reportedly rejected a plan put forward by a major shareholder that called for the company to restructure, form a new company-held restaurant unit and sell a 20% stake to the public. Last week, shareholder William Ackman called on the company to sell 1 000 of its 8,000 company-owned restaurants in mature markets to franchisees and reinvest that money in building markets in Asia, Russia and elsewhere, Reuters reported. Ackman said that McDonald's company-owned McOpCo restaurant division is underperforming compared with peers. By going public, the division would be forced to disclose that financial performance to the market and allow it to reward managers with share incentives for improvement, he said. "We think resources are not allocated efficiently today because this business is not independent," Ackman said. "There is just no way to argue against transparency." However McDonald's disagreed. "We continue to believe that an IPO of McOpCo would not deliver the value already being created by our current strategy," the company said in a statement.