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Yum! Brands Increases Quarterly Dividend 27%
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) announced that its Board of Directors approved a 27% increase in the Company’s quarterly cash dividend from $0.15 to $0.19 per share. This higher cash dividend payment will be distributed August 1, 2008, in the Company’s fiscal third quarter, to shareholders of record at close of business on July 11, 2008.
David C. Novak, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “As a result of our continued confidence in the expansion of our global, high-return business, I am very pleased to inform our shareholders that we are increasing our quarterly dividend by 27%. By raising the quarterly cash dividend to $0.19 per share, we have nearly quadrupled our dividend since we initiated it just four years ago (in May 2004).
“Our business generates significant cash flow even after investing capital in all of our global growth opportunities. In 2007, we returned $1.7 billion to shareholders, including $1.4 billion in share repurchases and nearly $275 million in dividends. This year, we expect to pay out over $2 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. We are well on our way to achieving this goal as we paid out almost $1.1 billion in the first quarter alone.
“With the unique, global growth opportunities, significant cash generation capability of all our businesses and a strong balance sheet, we expect to continue to return substantial free cash flow to our shareholders for the foreseeable future. The increase in our quarterly dividend demonstrates we can simultaneously pay a meaningful quarterly dividend and execute significant share buybacks to increase shareholder value.”
Dividend History
In May 2004, the Company announced the initiation of a regular quarterly dividend, followed by a 15% increase in May 2005 and a 30% increase in May 2006. In December 2006, the Company announced a doubling of the quarterly dividend from $0.075 to $0.15 per share.
Yum! Brands Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants with over 35,000 restaurants, which includes over 2,000 licensed restaurants, in more than 100 countries and territories. Four of the company’s restaurant brands — KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s — are the global leaders of the chicken, pizza, Mexican-style food and quick-service seafood categories respectively. Yum! Brands is the worldwide leader in multibranding, which offers consumers more choice and convenience at one restaurant location from a combination of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W or Long John Silver’s brands. The company and its franchisees today operate over 3,500 multibrand restaurants. Outside the United States in 2007, the Yum! Brands’ system opened about three new restaurants each day of the year, making it one of the fastest growing retailers in the world. For the past four years, the company has been recognized as one of Fortune Magazine’s “Top 50 Employers for Minorities.” It also has been recognized as one of the “Top 50 Employers for Women” by Fortune, one of the “40 Best Companies for Diversity” by Black Enterprise Magazine for the past three years, one of Black Enterprise Magazine’s “30 Hottest Franchises for 2006,” one of the “Corporate 100 Companies Providing Opportunities for Hispanics” by Hispanic Magazine, one of the “Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity” by Hispanic Trends Magazine and by BusinessWeek as one of the “Top 15 Companies for In-Kind Corporate Philanthropy.”
