[meric]

It's a real estate company because for many franchise stores, it owns the land and collects rent and franchise fee from the franchisees.

“McDonald’s real moneymaking engine was its little-known real estate business, Franchise Realty Corporation; envisioned and created by Harry Sonneborn. The obscure McDonald’s alter ego company was based on Sonneborn’s unique even lesser known financial formula.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Sonneborn (First CEO)

[throwmeaway33]

As I explained the "rent" is just a way of extracting money from the franchise. They are not necessarily charging the local market rate for commercial real estate (if it's a very busy McDonalds they can charge way more). They don't realistically sit down and consider maybe replacing the McDonalds with an American Apparel so they can charge more rent. So it's not the typical landlord<->renter relationship where the landlord considers getting new tenants and the renter considers moving to a new place.