Nomura Holdings Inc. Buys Shares of 9,196 Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Nomura Holdings Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 9,196 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock, valued at approximately $1,234,000.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,355,367 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $315,996,000 after buying an additional 94,026 shares during the last quarter. Cantillon Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 31.7% during the 4th quarter. Cantillon Capital Management LLC now owns 1,880,379 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $252,272,000 after buying an additional 452,339 shares during the last quarter. DJE Kapital AG acquired a new stake in Yum! Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $3,306,000. Forsta AP Fonden grew its holdings in Yum! Brands by 5.3% during the 4th quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 110,500 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $14,825,000 after buying an additional 5,600 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 2.7% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,677,290 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $225,025,000 after purchasing an additional 44,428 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Yum! Brands

In other news, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,063 shares of Yum! Brands stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $145.57, for a total transaction of $1,028,160.91. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 157,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,984,484.01. The trade was a 4.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, 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 sale, the vice president now directly owns 11,960 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,897,573.60. The trade was a 29.48% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 62,334 shares of company stock valued at $9,734,737 over the last three months. 0.33% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on YUM shares. Citigroup raised their price objective on Yum! Brands from $148.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Yum! Brands from $140.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Yum! Brands from $160.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, May 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein cut Yum! Brands from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $140.00 to $135.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Yum! Brands from $147.00 to $151.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Sixteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $156.70.

Yum! Brands Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of Yum! Brands stock opened at $147.74 on Monday. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $122.13 and a twelve month high of $163.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.30, a PEG ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.77. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $149.76 and its 200 day moving average price is $142.05.

Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The restaurant operator reported $1.30 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 analyst estimates of $1.85 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.15 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current year.

Yum! Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 6th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 27th will be given a $0.71 dividend. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 27th. Yum! Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 56.57%.

About Yum! Brands

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.