new delhi hardcastle restaurants the franchisee of mcdonalds for west and south india operations plans to invest rs 750 crore in next 57 years to double the outlets of the fast food chain to 500 in the two regions while the company will focus on expanding in existing key markets it has also drawn up plans to open mcdonalds in two to three new smaller cities every year as part of the strategy we are going to double the base of our restaurants taking it from 240 above to 500 in next five to seven years and the investment planned is around rs 750 crore hardcastle restaurants vice chairman amit jatia told pti the companys average investment is around rs 2 crore to rs 25 crore on opening a new mcdonalds store he said the planned expansion will entail large scale hiring we will also double the employment from 7500 people to 15000 jatia said on places where the company plans to set up new outlets he said my strategy would be to focus on key cities in my region as mumbai chennai hyderabad bangalore ahmedabad pune surat and baroda 60 to 70 per cent of the new openings would continue in these cities for expansion in smaller cities the company would focus on sustainability rather than going for wild aggression besides hardcastle restaurants is also building several drivethrough formats of mcdonalds every year we would have two to three new cities it would be a step by step approach as the logistic management is still very quite complex in these places jatia said over funding of the expansion he said the company has enough cash reserve for the next two years and only after that the company would consider other options we are a cash rich company with zero debt our internal accrual is going to help us a lot and we have additional room to take debt he said stating that the company does not have an immediate fund raising plans he said the cash flow would get better and better in the next two years we would reevaluate whether we need to raise any equity for next 12 to 24 months jatia said the company would also double the number of outlets of mccafe in two years from its present tally of around 100 we would double it in next 18 months to 2 years time we would have the largest number of coffee shops in india after cafe coffee day jatia added mccafe was introduced here in october 2013 pti published on sep 19 2016 at 0947 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of