Share Buyback Plan Declared by Yum China (NYSE:YUMC) Board of Directors

Yum China (NYSE:YUMC) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Friday, December 12th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to purchase up to 5.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YUMC has been the subject of several analyst reports. CLSA reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $55.00 price target on shares of Yum China in a research note on Tuesday, November 25th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Yum China in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $55.00.

Yum China Price Performance

Yum China stock opened at $48.53 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $45.45 and its 200-day simple moving average is $45.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.32. Yum China has a 1 year low of $41.00 and a 1 year high of $53.99. The company has a market capitalization of $17.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 0.14.

Yum China (NYSE:YUMC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The company reported $0.76 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76. The firm had revenue of $3.21 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.20 billion. Yum China had a net margin of 7.81% and a return on equity of 14.08%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Yum China will post 2.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Yum China Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 2nd will be paid a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. Yum China’s payout ratio is presently 39.83%.

Insider Activity at Yum China

In other Yum China news, insider Warton Wang sold 8,187 shares of Yum China stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.28, for a total value of $395,268.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 46,847 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,261,773.16. The trade was a 14.88% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Duoduo (Howard) Huang sold 4,888 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.10, for a total transaction of $235,112.80. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 22,510 shares in the company, valued at $1,082,731. This represents a 17.84% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 18,242 shares of company stock worth $878,397. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Yum China

Yum China Holdings, Inc owns, operates, and franchises restaurants in the People's Republic of China. The company operates through KFC, Pizza Hut, and All Other segments. It operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Lavazza, Little Sheep, and Huang Ji Huang concepts. The company also operates V-Gold Mall, a mobile e-commerce platform to sell products; and offers online food deliver services.