IFP Advisors Inc Reduces Stock Holdings in Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

IFP Advisors Inc reduced its stake in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 33.4% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 7,128 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 3,570 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $1,078,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Yum! Brands by 4.5% in the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 267,162 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $40,609,000 after purchasing an additional 11,532 shares during the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama boosted its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 19.7% in the third quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 347,395 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $52,804,000 after acquiring an additional 57,112 shares during the period. National Pension Service boosted its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 2.5% in the third quarter. National Pension Service now owns 430,416 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $65,423,000 after acquiring an additional 10,632 shares during the period. Hudson Bay Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $24,786,000. Finally, Dakota Wealth Management boosted its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 89.8% in the fourth quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 20,098 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $3,040,000 after acquiring an additional 9,509 shares during the period. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Yum! Brands

In related news, COO Tracy L. Skeans sold 1,837 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $152.00, for a total value of $279,224.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 3,497 shares in the company, valued at $531,544. This trade represents a 34.44% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Christopher Lee Turner sold 250 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.48, for a total transaction of $40,120.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 64,552 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,359,304.96. This trade represents a 0.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 2,890 shares of company stock worth $451,123 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Price Performance

NYSE:YUM opened at $155.24 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $157.16 and its 200 day moving average price is $155.46. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $137.33 and a 1-year high of $169.39. The firm has a market cap of $42.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.61.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The restaurant operator reported $1.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.39 by $0.11. Yum! Brands had a net margin of 20.48% and a negative return on equity of 23.51%. The firm had revenue of $2.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.04 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.30 EPS. Yum! Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 6.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 12th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 27th will be given a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 27th. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.39%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently weighed in on YUM. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $180.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Monday, February 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Yum! Brands from $174.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Guggenheim reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $180.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Thursday, February 12th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Yum! Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $176.22.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc (NYSE: YUM) is a global quick-service restaurant company that develops, operates and franchises a portfolio of well-known restaurant brands. The company’s principal brands are KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, each focused on distinct product categories—KFC on fried chicken and related menu items, Pizza Hut on pizza and complementary offerings, and Taco Bell on Mexican-inspired quick-service food. Yum! is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and was formed as Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997 when PepsiCo spun off its restaurant businesses, later adopting the Yum! Brands name.

The company’s operating model centers on brand development, system growth and franchising; a large portion of its restaurants are operated by independent franchisees, and Yum! generates revenue through franchise royalties and fees in addition to sales from company-operated locations.