Chevy Chase Trust Holdings LLC Trims Stake in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Chevy Chase Trust Holdings LLC lowered its stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 2.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 153,164 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after selling 4,397 shares during the period. Chevy Chase Trust Holdings LLC’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $20,548,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. V Square Quantitative Management LLC grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 14.7% in the fourth quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 9,735 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $1,306,000 after purchasing an additional 1,244 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 127,917 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $17,298,000 after purchasing an additional 6,571 shares during the period. Buckhead Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $210,000. Consolidated Planning Corp grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Consolidated Planning Corp now owns 2,002 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $269,000 after purchasing an additional 154 shares during the period. Finally, McClarren Financial Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Yum! Brands in the fourth quarter worth about $120,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Yum! Brands Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of Yum! Brands stock opened at $147.80 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $41.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 1.10. The company’s 50 day moving average is $133.32 and its 200 day moving average is $134.52. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $122.13 and a twelve month high of $149.30.

Yum! Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 7th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.71 per share. This is a boost from Yum! Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 21st. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 51.34%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein cut shares of Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $140.00 to $135.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of Yum! Brands from $140.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. TD Securities upped their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $140.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $156.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reiterated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $140.00 target price (down previously from $158.00) on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Thirteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $147.37.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 3,815 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $137.06, for a total transaction of $522,883.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 149,385 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,474,708.10. This represents a 2.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.31% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.