Blackston Financial Advisory Group LLC Buys 295 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Blackston Financial Advisory Group LLC raised its stake in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 9.0% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 3,580 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after acquiring an additional 295 shares during the period. Blackston Financial Advisory Group LLC’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $563,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Insider Transactions at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO Scott Mezvinsky sold 268 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $145.97, for a total transaction of $39,119.96. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,755 shares in the company, valued at approximately $256,177.35. This trade represents a 13.25% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 5,139 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.70, for a total value of $753,891.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 157,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,162,903.10. This trade represents a 3.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 12,470 shares of company stock worth $1,821,172. Company insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on YUM. Citigroup upped their target price on Yum! Brands from $148.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Guggenheim upped their price objective on Yum! Brands from $155.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Yum! Brands from $130.00 to $148.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on Yum! Brands from $150.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Fourteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Yum! Brands has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $158.24.

Yum! Brands Stock Down 1.5%

Shares of NYSE:YUM opened at $141.89 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $39.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.74. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $122.13 and a 12-month high of $163.30. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $145.62 and a 200 day simple moving average of $143.37.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The restaurant operator reported $1.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.85 billion. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 20.33% and a net margin of 19.68%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.15 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 6th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 27th were issued a dividend of $0.71 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 27th. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.00%. Yum! Brands’s payout ratio is 56.57%.

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.