Bank of America Corp DE Sells 440,518 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Bank of America Corp DE trimmed its position in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 11.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,355,528 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 440,518 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE owned about 1.20% of Yum! Brands worth $450,178,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Yum! Brands by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,604,632 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,021,194,000 after buying an additional 163,462 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 20.4% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,545,872 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $475,714,000 after acquiring an additional 601,361 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter worth $418,692,000. FMR LLC increased its position in Yum! Brands by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,521,583 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $338,296,000 after purchasing an additional 24,681 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in Yum! Brands by 4.2% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,355,367 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $315,996,000 after purchasing an additional 94,026 shares in the last quarter. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 5,139 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.70, for a total transaction of $753,891.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 157,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $23,162,903.10. This represents a 3.15 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, VP David Eric Russell sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.66, for a total value of $793,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 11,960 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,897,573.60. This trade represents a 29.48 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 55,271 shares of company stock valued at $8,706,576. 0.33% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on YUM. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating and set a $140.00 target price on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Sanford C. Bernstein downgraded Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $140.00 to $135.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Yum! Brands from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Finally, Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $156.70.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE YUM opened at $148.39 on Wednesday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $151.59 and its 200-day moving average price is $141.23. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $122.13 and a 52-week high of $163.30. The company has a market cap of $41.33 billion, a PE ratio of 28.43, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.77.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The restaurant operator reported $1.30 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.01. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 20.33% and a net margin of 19.68%. The business had revenue of $1.79 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.85 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.15 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 7th. Investors of record on Friday, February 21st were issued a $0.71 dividend. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.91%. This is an increase from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 21st. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 56.57%.

About Yum! Brands

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.