Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) today announced it is reorganizing its
business to drive greater brand and geographic focus. Effective January
1, 2014, Yum! Brands, Inc. will combine its Yum! Restaurants
International (YRI) and the U.S. individual divisions for KFC, Pizza Hut
and Taco Bell. Yum! Restaurants China and Yum! Restaurants India will
remain separate divisions given their strategic importance and enormous
growth potential.
The KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell divisions will define and drive the
strategic positioning and operating models for the Brands, working
closely with the China and India division teams. “We believe that having
100% focused brand teams will enable us to more aggressively accelerate
growth. We also believe know-how sharing will be more powerful by
bringing the U.S. and international businesses together,” said David C.
Novak, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Yum! Brands, Inc. “This is
a natural evolution from where we are today. Over the last few years, we
have been separating our YRI field business units by Brand. The next
logical step was to organize our division leadership and resources by
Brand, as we are now doing,” he added.
The new leadership structure, reporting to Novak includes: Sam Su, Yum!
Brands Vice Chairman and Chairman and CEO of Yum! Restaurants China;
Micky Pant, CEO of KFC; Scott Bergren, CEO of Pizza Hut; Greg Creed, CEO
of Taco Bell; and Niren Chaudhary, President of Yum! Restaurants India.
Also reporting to Novak are the YUM corporate functional leaders of
finance, operations, human resources, public affairs and legal.
Rick Carucci played a major role in developing the new organizational
strategy and resulting structure. He announced his plans to retire as
Yum! Brands President in March 2014 following a smooth transition to the
new structure. “Rick Carucci has been an incredible partner to me, and
the Company will be forever grateful for his many contributions over a
long career with YUM,” said Novak. “As we move forward, I couldn’t be
more confident that the best is yet to come—for our customers, our
associates and our franchisees—as we leverage our brand portfolio to
grow our business around the world.”
Commensurate with this new organizational structure and beginning in
fiscal year 2014, Yum! Brands will be providing financial reporting by
global division: KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, as well as for Yum!
Restaurants China and Yum! Restaurants India. More details related to
this new organizational structure and financial reporting will be shared
at Yum! Brands’ annual investor meeting on December 4th in
New York City, beginning at 8:45 a.m. EST. This meeting will be webcast
live and a replay of the webcast will be available following the event.
The webcast and presentations will be available online through the Yum!
Brands Investor Relations website at http://www.yum.com/investors.
This announcement, any related announcements and the related webcast may
contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A
of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange
Act of 1934. We intend all forward-looking statements to be covered by
the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact
that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Our
forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which
may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.
Factors that can cause our actual results to differ materially include,
but are not limited to: food safety and food borne-illness issues;
economic conditions, consumer preferences, adverse publicity, tax rates,
the regulatory environment, increased competition and other risks in
China, where a significant and growing portion of our restaurants are
located; economic and political conditions in the other countries where
we operate; the success of our international development strategy;
commodity, labor and other operating costs; our ability to secure and
maintain distribution and adequate supply to our restaurants; the
continued viability and success of our franchise and license operators;
publicity that may impact our business and/or industry; pending or
future litigation and legal claims or proceedings; the impact or threat
of any widespread illness or outbreaks of viruses or other diseases;
consumer preferences and perceptions of our brands; the success of our
refranchising strategy; significant changes in global economic
conditions, including consumer spending, consumer confidence and
unemployment; new and changing government regulations; our effective tax
rates and disagreements with taxing authorities; our ability to protect
the integrity and security of individually identifiable data of our
customers and employees; competition within the retail food industry,
including with respect to price and quality of food products, new
product development, advertising levels and promotional initiatives,
customer service, reputation, restaurant location, and attractiveness
and maintenance of properties; and risks associated with the Little
Sheep business. You should consult our filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (including the information set forth under the
captions “Risk Factors” and “Forward-Looking Statements” in our Annual
Report on Form 10-K) for additional detail about factors that could
affect our financial and other results. Forward-looking statements are
based on current expectations and assumptions and currently available
data and are neither predictions nor guarantees of future events or
performance. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We are not
undertaking to update any of these statements.
About Yum! Brands
Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 40,000
restaurants in more than 130 countries and territories. Yum! Brands is
ranked #201 on the Fortune 500 List with revenues of over $13 billion in
2012 and in 2013 was named among the top 100 Corporate Citizens by
Corporate Responsibility Magazine. The Company's restaurant brands -
KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - are the global leaders of the chicken,
pizza and Mexican-style food categories. Outside the United States, the
Yum! Brands system opened on average over five new restaurants per day
in 2012, making it a leader in international retail development.
Copyright Business Wire 2013