This restaurant spinoff continues to pay off

Article Excerpt

Yum Brands set up its Chinese operations (Yum China) as a separate company on November 1, 2016. At the same time, it handed its investors one share in the new firm for each Yum Brands share they held. Stock in both the spinoff and its former parent are up since the split, and we feel they have more gains ahead. YUM! BRANDS INC. $92 (New York symbol YUM; Aggressive Growth Portfolio; Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 313.0 million; Market cap: $28.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.0; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.yum.com) operates 45,000 restaurants in over 140 countries. Its main banners are KFC (fried chicken), Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Mexican food). The U.S. accounts for 45% of its sales and earnings. The company continues to sell stores to franchisees. That lowers its operating expenses and frees Yum from maintaining these outlets. The company wants to see franchisees operate 98% of the outlets by the end of 2018 compared to today’s 97%. Due to that…