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McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) showed itself to be recession resistant in its recent earnings release. But will the same be true for Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), parent of such fast-food standbys as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC?
Yum! Brands is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2008 results today after the market closes, and to discuss those results tomorrow, February 4, in a conference call at 9:15 AM ET. You can listen in to the call via the live webcast on the company's website.
For the quarter that saw the company's first "Corporate Responsibility" report and an effort to educate consumers about healthy eating, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the Louisville, Ky.-based company to report earnings of $0.45 per share, compared to $0.44 per share in the same period of the previous year. Revenue for the quarter is expected to total $3.4 billion, up 3.5% from a year ago. Yum!'s earnings have topped estimates in the past five quarters, by as much as 11.9%.
For the full year, analysts expect earnings of $1.90 per share and revenue of $11.3 billion, compared to $1.68 per share on $10.4 billion in 2007.
Analysts, on average, expect a long-term EPS growth to be 11.8% for Yum! Brands, which is better than that of McDonald's. The consensus recommendation has recently swung to buy YUM. The share price is down about 5% in the past three months, and it is about 21% lower than it was a year ago. Yum! Brands declared a $0.19 per share quarterly dividend in November.
See BloggingStocks' Yum! Brands coverage for more information about the fast-food restaurant company and its rivals.
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