First National Bank of Omaha Buys Shares of 4,060 Yum! Brands, Inc. $YUM

First National Bank of Omaha acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 4,060 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock, valued at approximately $617,000.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Crestwood Advisors Group LLC boosted its stake in Yum! Brands by 4.1% in the third quarter. Crestwood Advisors Group LLC now owns 4,204 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $639,000 after acquiring an additional 167 shares during the period. NEOS Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 45.5% in the 3rd quarter. NEOS Investment Management LLC now owns 36,363 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $5,527,000 after acquiring an additional 11,376 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC lifted its position in Yum! Brands by 6.3% in the 3rd quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC now owns 13,991 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $2,127,000 after purchasing an additional 834 shares during the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation National Association UT boosted its stake in Yum! Brands by 332.2% during the 3rd quarter. Zions Bancorporation National Association UT now owns 510 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $78,000 after purchasing an additional 392 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Yum! Brands by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,242,558 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $5,356,869,000 after purchasing an additional 684,946 shares during the period. 82.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have issued reports on YUM. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $179.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Oppenheimer cut shares of Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $177.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Yum! Brands from $165.00 to $176.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Yum! Brands presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $174.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Scott Mezvinsky sold 1,612 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Friday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $164.63, for a total transaction of $265,383.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Aaron Powell sold 12,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.44, for a total value of $1,937,280.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 14,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,365,096. This represents a 45.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 13,888 shares of company stock valued at $2,244,938 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

NYSE YUM opened at $163.45 on Friday. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 1 year low of $137.33 and a 1 year high of $165.32. The business’s fifty day moving average is $155.84 and its two-hundred day moving average is $150.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $45.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.45, a P/E/G ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.66.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The restaurant operator reported $1.73 earnings per share (EPS) 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 company had revenue of $2.51 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.45 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.61 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 20th will be given a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. This is an increase from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 20th. Yum! Brands’s payout ratio is 51.17%.

Yum! Brands 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.