True North Advisors LLC Purchases 163 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

True North Advisors LLC lifted its position in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 7.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,348 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after acquiring an additional 163 shares during the period. True North Advisors LLC’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $315,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Yum! Brands by 3.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 3,164,159 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $419,123,000 after purchasing an additional 104,328 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands in the 2nd quarter worth about $7,645,000. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its position in Yum! Brands by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 127,446 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $17,805,000 after acquiring an additional 17,133 shares during the period. DoubleLine ETF Adviser LP bought a new stake in Yum! Brands during the second quarter worth about $984,000. Finally, OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd purchased a new stake in Yum! Brands in the third quarter worth about $1,262,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,059 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.94, for a total value of $959,600.46. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 149,385 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $20,307,396.90. The trade was a 4.51 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.31% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Yum! Brands from $154.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Bank of America dropped their target price on Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $145.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Morgan Stanley restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $140.00 price target (down from $158.00) on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Tuesday. TD Cowen reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $145.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $140.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Thirteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $144.89.

Yum! Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE YUM opened at $126.20 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $35.22 billion, a PE ratio of 23.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 1.11. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $122.13 and a 1 year high of $143.20. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $133.44 and a 200-day moving average price of $133.60.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The restaurant operator reported $1.37 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.41 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $1.83 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 revenue was up 6.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.44 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.46 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 13th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were issued a $0.67 dividend. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.12%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 2nd. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 50.09%.

Yum! Brands 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.