Allianz SE Buys 4,918 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

Allianz SE boosted its stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 39.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 17,503 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after buying an additional 4,918 shares during the period. Allianz SE’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $2,660,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands in the 2nd quarter worth about $602,551,000. Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 34.3% during the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,789,728 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $413,382,000 after purchasing an additional 713,167 shares during the last quarter. Amundi raised its position in Yum! Brands by 115.8% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 1,311,849 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $197,013,000 after purchasing an additional 703,891 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Yum! Brands by 2.0% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,242,558 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $5,356,869,000 after purchasing an additional 684,946 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Magellan Asset Management Ltd boosted its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 35.9% during the second quarter. Magellan Asset Management Ltd now owns 2,306,932 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $341,841,000 after buying an additional 609,223 shares during the period. 82.37% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YUM has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $177.00 target price on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Gordon Haskett raised Yum! Brands from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $190.00 target price on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Friday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Friday, December 5th. Thirteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $174.50.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

Shares of YUM opened at $168.01 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $157.38 and a 200-day moving average price of $151.02. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $137.33 and a fifty-two week high of $169.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $46.44 billion, a PE ratio of 30.27, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.66.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 4th. The restaurant operator reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.76 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $2.52 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.45 billion. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 22.42% and a net margin of 18.98%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.61 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Investors of record on Friday, February 20th will be given a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 20th. This is an increase from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.8%. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 54.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO Christopher Lee Turner sold 242 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.02, for a total value of $40,176.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 65,297 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,840,607.94. The trade was a 0.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Aaron Powell sold 12,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.44, for a total transaction of $1,937,280.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,365,096. The trade was a 45.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 14,414 shares of company stock worth $2,332,265 over the last quarter. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands 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.