Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the fifteen brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $145.00.

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on YUM shares. Wells Fargo & Company cut shares of Yum! Brands from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $150.00 to $135.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Oppenheimer upgraded Yum! Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $154.00 price target for the company in a report on Friday, January 5th. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $135.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $164.00 to $166.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Yum! Brands from $133.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 19th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other news, VP David Eric Russell sold 9,919 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.63, for a total value of $1,285,799.97. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 18,661 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,419,025.43. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,078 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.37, for a total transaction of $979,382.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 172,128 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $23,817,351.36. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, VP David Eric Russell sold 9,919 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.63, for a total transaction of $1,285,799.97. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 18,661 shares in the company, valued at $2,419,025.43. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 24,064 shares of company stock worth $3,228,698 over the last quarter. 0.31% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter valued at about $331,831,000. Deutsche Bank AG boosted its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 121.8% in the 3rd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 1,819,809 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $227,367,000 after purchasing an additional 999,443 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its position in Yum! Brands by 4.9% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 14,650,728 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $1,914,257,000 after buying an additional 678,659 shares in the last quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 107.5% during the fourth quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 1,254,446 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $163,906,000 after buying an additional 649,922 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 55.8% during the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,592,259 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $208,045,000 after buying an additional 570,263 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Trading Up 0.4 %

NYSE YUM opened at $139.06 on Tuesday. Yum! Brands has a 12 month low of $115.53 and a 12 month high of $143.24. The company has a market capitalization of $39.15 billion, a PE ratio of 24.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.10. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $137.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $130.39.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The restaurant operator reported $1.26 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.39 by ($0.13). The firm had revenue of $2.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.11 billion. Yum! Brands had a net margin of 22.57% and a negative return on equity of 17.76%. The business’s revenue was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.31 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Yum! Brands will post 5.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 8th. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 21st were issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. This is an increase from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.61. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 20th. Yum! Brands’s payout ratio is presently 47.94%.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and franchises quick service restaurants worldwide. The company operates through the KFC Division, the Taco Bell Division, the Pizza Hut Division, and the Habit Burger Grill Division segments. It also operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, which specialize in chicken, pizza, made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches, Mexican-style food categories, and other food products.