Lipe & Dalton Has $4.62 Million Stock Position in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)

Lipe & Dalton increased its stake in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) by 0.4% in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 29,332 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the quarter. Yum! Brands makes up approximately 2.6% of Lipe & Dalton’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th largest position. Lipe & Dalton’s holdings in Yum! Brands were worth $4,616,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in YUM. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in Yum! Brands by 151.4% in the 1st quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 156,690 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $24,657,000 after acquiring an additional 94,355 shares during the period. CWA Asset Management Group LLC bought a new position in Yum! Brands during the 1st quarter worth $270,000. Sowell Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands during the 1st quarter worth $939,000. First National Bank Sioux Falls acquired a new stake in shares of Yum! Brands during the 1st quarter worth $283,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Yum! Brands by 1.9% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 353,103 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock worth $55,564,000 after purchasing an additional 6,673 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Scott Mezvinsky sold 272 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $148.28, for a total transaction of $40,332.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 1,755 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $260,231.40. This trade represents a 13.42% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO David W. Gibbs sold 7,117 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.60, for a total value of $1,043,352.20. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 102,893 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,084,113.80. This represents a 6.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 14,720 shares of company stock valued at $2,150,965 over the last three months. 0.33% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently weighed in on the company. Redburn Atlantic raised Yum! Brands from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $145.00 to $177.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 10th. Guggenheim lifted their price target on Yum! Brands from $155.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. TD Securities reissued a “hold” rating and set a $158.00 price target on shares of Yum! Brands in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Citigroup lifted their price target on Yum! Brands from $148.00 to $151.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Yum! Brands from $151.00 to $153.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday. Thirteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $159.86.

Yum! Brands Trading Up 0.5%

YUM stock traded up $0.73 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $148.81. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 143,685 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,982,130. The company has a market cap of $41.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 0.74. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $145.76 and its 200 day moving average price is $144.96. Yum! Brands, Inc. has a 12 month low of $122.13 and a 12 month 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, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.01. Yum! Brands had a negative return on equity of 20.80% and a net margin of 18.42%. The firm had revenue of $1.79 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.85 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.15 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Yum! Brands, Inc. will post 5.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Yum! Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 6th. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 27th were given a $0.71 dividend. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.91%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 27th. Yum! Brands’s payout ratio is currently 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.