“For the full year, we now expect G&A to be between 2. 3% and 2.4% of system-wide sales.”

In context

“ds continue to change. Now I'll turn it back to Ian to finish walking through the financials. Ian Borden: Thanks, Chris. Our strong performance during the third quarter resulted in earnings per share of $2.68. This reflects an adjusted increase of 4% in constant currencies after excluding the prior year gain for the partial divestiture of our ownership in McDonald's Japan. Company-operated margins remain pressured by significant commodity and wage inflation as well as elevated energy costs. We believe these pressures will continue to impact margins for the next several quarters. G&A costs increased about 7% in constant currencies for the quarter, driven by a combination of continued investment in growth-driving initiatives such as restaurant technology and inflationary pressures on costs. For the full year, we now expect G&A to be between 2. 3% and 2.4% of system-wide sales. This is primarily due to the inflationary pressures I just mentioned as well as a stronger U.S. dollar having a greater impact on sales, which are predominantly outside of the U.S., whereas most of our G&A expense is U.S. dollar based. However, despite these headwinds, our year-to-date adjusted operating margin percentage has grown and is now in the mid-40s. Our effective tax rate was 21.9% for the quarter. The strong U.S. dollar I just mentioned, created a foreign currency headwind to quarter three earnings per share of $0.19. And based on current exchange rates, we expect foreign exchange to impact fourth quarter earnings per share by between $0.14 to $0.16, but the full year headwind totaling about $0.50. As always, this is directional guidance only as rates will likely change as we mo”