DAVENPORT & Co LLC Lowers Stock Holdings in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

DAVENPORT & Co LLC reduced its stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 0.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 20,839 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 114 shares during the quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $2,796,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of YUM. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 5,077.1% during the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 182,130 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $25,445,000 after buying an additional 178,612 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 14,151.9% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 148,220 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $20,708,000 after purchasing an additional 147,180 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 1.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,441,170 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,038,775,000 after purchasing an additional 111,147 shares during the last quarter. Markel Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 80.9% in the third quarter. Markel Group Inc. now owns 156,502 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $21,865,000 after purchasing an additional 70,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 907.3% in the fourth quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 76,416 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $10,252,000 after purchasing an additional 68,830 shares during the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

YUM has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $141.00 target price (down from $153.00) on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price objective on Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $145.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Yum! Brands from $154.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Loop Capital cut their price objective on Yum! Brands from $143.00 to $140.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Argus raised Yum! Brands from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 31st. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $144.89.

Yum! Brands Stock Up 0.0 %

Shares of NYSE YUM opened at $131.51 on Wednesday. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $122.13 and a twelve month high of $143.20. The firm has a market cap of $36.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.58, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a 50 day moving average of $132.49 and a 200 day moving average of $133.63.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The restaurant operator reported $1.37 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.41 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $1.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.90 billion. Yum! Brands had a net margin of 21.13% and a negative return on equity of 18.93%. Yum! Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.44 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were paid a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.04%. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 50.09%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,059 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.94, for a total transaction of $959,600.46. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 149,385 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,307,396.90. The trade was a 4.51 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Company Profile

Yum! Brands, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops, operates, and franchises quick service restaurants worldwide. The company operates through the KFC Division, the Taco Bell Division, the Pizza Hut Division, and the Habit Burger Grill Division segments. It also operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, which specialize in chicken, pizza, made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches, Mexican-style food categories, and other food products.