We anticipate their post-COVID growth

Article Excerpt

Yum Brands and its 2016 spinoff, Yum China, continue to rebound strongly from latest year’s COVID-19 lockdowns. Longer term, they will benefit from investments in online ordering and home delivery spurred by the pandemic. YUM! BRANDS INC. $134 is a buy. The company (New York symbol YUM; Consumer Sector; Shares outstanding: 295.7 million; Market cap: $39.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 6.3; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.yum.com) operates 51,000 restaurants in over 150 countries—65% of those outlets are outside of the U.S. Its main banners are KFC (fried chicken), Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Mexican food). Franchisees now operate 98% of its outlets. Yum has now re-opened most of its stores in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdowns. It also opened 603 new outlets (net of closures). As a result, sales in the second quarter of 2021 rose 33.7%, to $1.60 billion from $1.20 billion a year earlier. On a same-store basis, sales jumped 23%. All three of its main chains reported strong…