EP Wealth Advisors LLC Purchases 430 Shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

EP Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 3.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 14,157 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after buying an additional 430 shares during the period. EP Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $1,899,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Yum! Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. WealthTrak Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Yum! Brands during the fourth quarter worth approximately $25,000. Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its stake in shares of Yum! Brands by 436.5% in the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 279 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 227 shares during the period. Finally, Jackson Grant Investment Advisers Inc. increased its stake in Yum! Brands by 52.1% during the 4th quarter. Jackson Grant Investment Advisers Inc. now owns 295 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $40,000 after acquiring an additional 101 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 5,139 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.70, for a total transaction of $753,891.30. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 157,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,162,903.10. This represents a 3.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP David Eric Russell sold 5,000 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owns 11,960 shares of the company’s stock, 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. Insiders have sold 55,271 shares of company stock worth $8,706,576 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

YUM has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on Yum! Brands from $140.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $140.00 to $135.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. TD Cowen reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $140.00 price objective on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on Yum! Brands from $163.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $156.70.

Yum! Brands Stock Performance

YUM stock opened at $147.19 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $40.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.20, a PEG ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.77. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $151.04 and a 200-day moving average price of $141.48. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 52-week low of $122.13 and a 52-week high of $163.30.

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

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.