Benjamin Edwards Inc. Boosts Holdings in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 19.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 4,831 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after buying an additional 799 shares during the quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc.’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $649,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Yum! Brands by 26.9% in the 4th quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 3,228 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $433,000 after acquiring an additional 684 shares during the last quarter. Arrowroot Family Office LLC lifted its position in shares of Yum! Brands by 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Arrowroot Family Office LLC now owns 2,221 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $298,000 after buying an additional 201 shares in the last quarter. AXA S.A. boosted its stake in Yum! Brands by 80.6% during the fourth quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 65,474 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $8,784,000 after buying an additional 29,224 shares during the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 5.5% during the 4th quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 39,762 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $5,334,000 after buying an additional 2,084 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. raised its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 436.5% during the 4th quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 279 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 227 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Yum! Brands

In other Yum! Brands news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 30,604 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $159.46, for a total transaction of $4,880,113.84. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 160,296 shares in the company, valued at $25,560,800.16. This represents a 16.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Erika Burkhardt sold 597 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $159.07, for a total value of $94,964.79. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 64 shares in the company, valued at $10,180.48. This represents a 90.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 55,271 shares of company stock worth $8,706,576 over the last three months. 0.33% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on YUM. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price 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. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of Yum! Brands from $130.00 to $148.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Yum! Brands from $156.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Guggenheim upped their price objective on Yum! Brands from $155.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Sixteen research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $156.70.

Yum! Brands Price Performance

Shares of 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 P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.77. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $151.04 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $141.48. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a one year low of $122.13 and a one year high of $163.30.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The restaurant operator reported $1.30 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.01. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 20.33% and a net margin of 19.68%. The company had revenue of $1.79 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.85 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.15 EPS. Yum! Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS 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.