Ford, Phillips 66, Yum! Brands, and Two Other Stocks Are in Spotlight Today for Various Reasons

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) shares are almost 3% in the green after the company announced that it intends to be more focused, more franchised, and more efficient going forward during its annual investor conference day. Yum plans to increase franchise restaurant ownership to at least 98% by fiscal year ending 2018 from the current 77% (and 93% at the time of separation of the China business). Yum also intends to reduce capital expenditures from $500 million annually to $100 million by 2019 and to maintain an optimized capital structure of around 5x EBITDA leverage. Yum plans to return $13.5 billion in capital when including dividends back to shareholders between the fourth quarter 2015 and 2019. A total of 46 funds tracked by us had a bullish position in Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) at the end of June, down by five funds from the previous quarter.

Traders are talking about General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) after the industrial conglomerate announced its intention to buy LM Wind Power, a Denmark-based manufacturer and supplier of rotor blades to the wind industry, for $1.65 billion or about 8.3 times pro forma earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (2016 estimate). GE’s management believes the deal will be accretive in 2018 and will help the company capture more value in the fast growing and promising renewable energy sector. The number of funds from our database with holdings in General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) fell by seven quarter-over-quarter to 57 at the end of June.

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