Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Trims Stock Position in Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. cut its holdings in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 51.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 109,572 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 113,937 shares during the quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $16,576,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Salomon & Ludwin LLC lifted its stake in Yum! Brands by 679.2% in the 3rd quarter. Salomon & Ludwin LLC now owns 187 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 163 shares in the last quarter. Wiser Advisor Group LLC purchased a new position in Yum! Brands during the third quarter worth $28,000. Community Bank N.A. purchased a new position in Yum! Brands during the third quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 81.7% in the third quarter. Westside Investment Management Inc. now owns 198 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $30,000 after acquiring an additional 89 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CNB Bank lifted its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 833.3% in the third quarter. CNB Bank now owns 224 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on YUM shares. Oppenheimer lowered Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 6th. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Friday, December 5th. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $165.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Thirteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $174.50.

Yum! Brands Trading Down 1.8%

Yum! Brands stock opened at $156.27 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $159.46 and a 200 day moving average price of $152.69. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 52 week low of $137.33 and a 52 week high of $169.39. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.16, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.64.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The restaurant operator reported $1.73 earnings per share (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 analyst estimates of $2.45 billion. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 22.42% and a net margin of 18.98%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.61 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 6th. Investors of record on Friday, February 20th were given a $0.75 dividend. This is a boost from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 20th. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 54.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO Scott Mezvinsky sold 284 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.02, for a total transaction of $47,149.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Aaron Powell sold 12,000 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 14,650 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,365,096. This trade represents a 45.03% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 14,138 shares of company stock valued at $2,289,990. 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.