Food-safety fears hurt Yum’s earnings

Article Excerpt

YUM! BRANDS INC. $69 (New York symbol YUM; Aggressive Growth Portfolio; Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 450.7 million; Market cap: $31.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.yum.com) earned $0.70 a share in the first quarter of 2013, down 7.9% from $0.76 a year earlier. Sales fell 7.6%, to $2.5 billion from $2.7 billion. These declines are mainly due to bad publicity over allegations that Yum’s KFC outlets in China bought raw chicken with higherthan- permitted levels of antibiotics. As a result, profits at the China division (45% of sales) fell 39.8% in the quarter. However, Chinese regulators did not charge Yum with violating safety standards. Yum Brands is still a buy. buy…