Yum! Brands’ 4th Quarter Bolstered By Improved Sales At Two Chains

Yum! Brands, owner of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, beat fourth quarter Wall Street earnings forecasts, posting $0.68 a share compared to $0.66, though sales were moderate. The company said profit was helped by improved same-store sales at Taco Bell (up four percent) and KFC (up three percent). Pizza Hut remains a worry: same-store sales rose one percent last quarter, just shy of the 1.5 percent gain expected by Wall Street. Overall revenue fell about one percent to $3.95 billion, short of analyst forecasts of $4.03 billion. Yum! Brands has said it will spin off its Chinese business into a separate unit. The company gets about half of its revenue from Chinese operations.