Yum! Brands, Inc.

The move has stalled — likely just drifts unless something new shows up.

Yum! Brands at 24x earnings with 31% ROIC and 31% operating margins — Q1 grew 15% but the consumer-cohort sell-off is keeping it flat YTD.

Yum! Brands operates KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell globally — three of the largest QSR chains by unit count, with the franchise-heavy business model that drives the structural 31.4% operating margin and 31.4% ROIC profile (rare for restaurants). Q1 revenue grew 15.2% YoY to $2.1B at a 31.3% operating margin with $341M of FCF and an 8.7% EPS beat. Trailing P/E sits at 24x with a 4% FCF yield. The June 3 Barron's 'Yum! Keeps Growing — Why the Stock Price Will Follow' and Marketbeat's 'Yum's Deal Lifts QSR' (June 3) coverage capture the constructive operator-quality framing against the broader restaurant-cohort wipeout (CMG at 52-week lows, SHAK -45%, PTLO -37%). The structural data point: officer Powell sold $914K of stock on May 19, officer Tresvant sold $464K on May 26, plus smaller officer distributions — roughly $1.7M of mid-officer Form 4 activity. Shares essentially flat YTD (-0.4%) and +5.6% TTM, sitting at 42% of the 52-week range. The bet is whether Taco Bell-led same-store-sales growth and global Pizza Hut recovery sustain against the cohort pressure — Yum's franchise model and best-in-class margins are the structural moat.