Brokerages Set Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) Target Price at $175.24

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) has been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty-one research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $174.6667.

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on YUM. Robert W. Baird lowered their target price on Yum! Brands from $174.00 to $165.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 16th. Weiss Ratings lowered Yum! Brands from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Yum! Brands from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, August 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Yum! Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $165.00 to $175.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 10th.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

Shares of YUM stock opened at $139.37 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $38.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.53, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.55. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $148.93 and a 200 day simple moving average of $153.84. Yum! Brands has a 52 week low of $134.26 and a 52 week high of $170.14.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The restaurant operator reported $1.62 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.58 by $0.04. Yum! Brands had a net margin of 25.42% and a negative return on equity of 24.57%. The business had revenue of $2.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.44 EPS. Yum! Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 12.2% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Yum! Brands will post 6.47 EPS for the current year.

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

Yum! Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 18th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th were given a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.2%. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.74%.

Insider Transactions at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO Christopher Lee Turner sold 261 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.15, for a total value of $39,972.15. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 63,771 shares in the company, valued at $9,766,528.65. This trade represents a 0.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Aaron Powell sold 6,001 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.42, for a total value of $962,680.42. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 12,003 shares in the company, valued at $1,925,521.26. This represents a 33.33% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 18,780 shares of company stock worth $2,940,693. Corporate insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Yum! Brands

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in YUM. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Yum! Brands during the 2nd quarter worth $4,186,811,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter valued at about $706,799,000. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 1,373.2% during the second quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 4,631,940 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $740,462,000 after acquiring an additional 4,317,526 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands during the second quarter worth about $638,589,000. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its holdings in Yum! Brands by 20.0% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 19,419,826 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $2,938,139,000 after purchasing an additional 3,240,190 shares during the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, Inc is a global restaurant company that develops, operates and franchises quick-service restaurants. Its portfolio includes KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and The Habit Burger Grill, which offer products such as fried and grilled chicken, tacos and other Mexican-inspired foods, pizza, burgers and related menu items.

The company’s restaurants serve customers through a combination of company-operated locations and franchised and licensed outlets. Yum! Brands supports its restaurant concepts with brand management, franchise services, technology and digital ordering capabilities, while franchisees generally manage day-to-day restaurant operations.

Yum! Brands serves customers in numerous markets worldwide, with a significant presence in the United States and international markets across regions including Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.