Credit crunch shakes McD's coffee bar plans

From Advertising Age:

CHICAGO -- The banking crisis is threatening to take a rather surprising hostage: McDonald's big-budget coffee rollout.

Tightening credit conditions, which are crimping plans for marketers as diverse as giant General Motors Corp. and relatively small household-products company Method, have prompted Bank of America to halt loans to McDonald's franchisees. They need the capital to frantically build coffee bars in the chain's 14,000 locations for what was planned to be an April coffee introduction.

And although it won't derail the launch altogether, it is likely to delay it nearly into summer -- hardly optimal timing for a hot-beverage introduction.

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