Brokerages Set Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) Price Target at $174.81

Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) have been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the eighteen ratings firms that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $174.8125.

YUM has been the topic of several research reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $177.00 target price on Yum! Brands in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Tuesday, June 16th. Weiss Ratings downgraded Yum! Brands from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Yum! Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $180.00 to $185.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 3rd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Christopher Lee Turner sold 250 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.42, for a total transaction of $40,105.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 64,032 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,272,013.44. This trade represents a 0.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Sean Tresvant sold 3,000 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.68, for a total transaction of $464,040.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 3,140 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $485,695.20. The trade was a 48.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 12,423 shares of company stock worth $1,953,721. 0.14% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Yum! Brands

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in YUM. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands during the 4th quarter worth $706,799,000. Capital International Investors grew its position in Yum! Brands by 20.0% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 19,419,826 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $2,938,139,000 after acquiring an additional 3,240,190 shares during the last quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. acquired a new position in Yum! Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $272,794,000. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in Yum! Brands by 42.2% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,183,964 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $632,950,000 after acquiring an additional 1,240,777 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $168,604,000. Institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

Shares of YUM opened at $152.20 on Monday. Yum! Brands has a 52 week low of $137.33 and a 52 week high of $170.14. The firm has a market cap of $41.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.56. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $153.93 and its 200 day simple moving average is $156.73.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The restaurant operator reported $1.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 analysts’ expectations of $2.04 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.30 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Yum! Brands will post 6.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Yum! Brands declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Tuesday, June 16th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the restaurant operator to repurchase up to 9.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Yum! Brands Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 12th. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 27th were paid a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, May 27th. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.0%. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 48.39%.

Yum! Brands Company Profile

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.