Envestnet Asset Management Inc. Purchases 11,532 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 4.5% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 267,162 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after acquiring an additional 11,532 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $40,609,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of YUM. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 7,861 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,055,000 after acquiring an additional 583 shares during the period. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. raised its position in Yum! Brands by 2.3% in the second quarter. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 11,622 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,722,000 after purchasing an additional 263 shares in the last quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Yum! Brands by 11.9% during the second quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 8,011 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,187,000 after purchasing an additional 853 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC boosted its holdings in Yum! Brands by 8.2% during the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 40,890 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $6,059,000 after purchasing an additional 3,092 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CWM LLC grew its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 1.9% in the 2nd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 14,536 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $2,154,000 after purchasing an additional 269 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Yum! Brands

Here are the key news stories impacting Yum! Brands this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Significant decline in short interest — Short interest fell about 18.8% to ~7.01M shares as of Jan. 30, leaving only ~2.5% of shares sold short and a days-to-cover of ~3.1. Less short exposure can reduce selling pressure and increases the chance of short-covering rallies.
• Positive Sentiment: Company doubling down on restaurant technology as a growth lever — Yum highlights tech investments as central to its 2026 growth strategy, which could boost margins, digital orders and unit economics over time. Yum! Brands Makes Restaurant Tech Central to Its 2026 Growth Strategy
• Positive Sentiment: Marketing/brand lift for Pizza Hut — Seasonal/high-visibility promotion: Pizza Hut partnered with Backstreet Boys members to relaunch the heart-shaped pizza for Valentine’s Day, a consumer-facing campaign that can drive short-term traffic and sales. PIZZA HUT PARTNERS WITH BACKSTREET BOYS’ NICK CARTER AND HOWIE DOROUGH
• Neutral Sentiment: Some markets insulated from closures — Local reporting notes Hawaii Pizza Hut locations remain unaffected by the national wave of closures, which tempers regional risk but doesn’t change the broader footprint adjustment. Pizza Hut locations in Hawaii remain unaffected by closures across the country
• Negative Sentiment: Closure of roughly 250 Pizza Hut restaurants — Yum is closing about 250 underperforming Pizza Hut units, a meaningful contraction that signals execution issues at the brand and will weigh on near-term revenue and franchise economics. Yum closing about 250 Pizza Hut restaurants
• Negative Sentiment: Critical press on Pizza Hut strategy and execution — Coverage framing “the problem with Pizza Hut” and deep-dive pieces about KFC/Taco Bell strategy shifts raise investor concern that parts of the portfolio need more turnaround work. The problem with Pizza Hut
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst/commentary headwinds — Recent commentary includes pieces calling YUM “overbought” and reporting a rating downgrade tied to execution concerns; that negative sentiment can pressure the multiple even while fundamentals are mixed. Yum! Brands: Stock Is Overbought, Valuation Is Fully Cooked

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

YUM has been the subject of several analyst reports. Oppenheimer downgraded Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $177.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $165.00 to $176.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. BMO Capital Markets reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $165.00 target price on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $160.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Monday, November 17th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $172.50.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

NYSE:YUM opened at $158.86 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $44.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.62, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 0.66. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $153.56 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $149.31. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $137.33 and a 52-week high of $163.60.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The restaurant operator reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.76 by ($0.03). Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 22.42% and a net margin of 18.98%.The firm had revenue of $2.51 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.45 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.61 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 6.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 20th will be given a dividend of $0.75 per share. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 20th. This is a boost from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.17%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Aaron Powell sold 12,000 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 14,650 shares in the company, valued at $2,365,096. The trade was a 45.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, COO Tracy L. Skeans sold 24,332 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $149.10, for a total transaction of $3,627,901.20. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 36,608 shares of company stock valued at $5,607,456. 0.33% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Yum! Brands Company 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.