Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc. owners of the Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell restaurant brands, has announced that it will change its corporate name to Yum! Brands, Inc. YUM is already the company's ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. The name change will be submitted for shareholders’ approval at the annual meeting on May 16, 2002.
“The change of name will not materially affect the 280 KFC and 293 Pizza Hut restaurants our franchisees operate in the Middle East,” said Irfan Mustafa, vice president and managing director of Tricon Restaurants Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. “We have a small presence of both these brands in the Middle East and soon we will be engaging our Partners to see how best we can exploit their potential here,” stated Mustafa.
Tricon also announced it has completed its acquisition of Long John Silver's (LJS) and A&W All-American Food Restaurants for $320-million in cash from Yorkshire Global Restaurants (YGR).
In 2000, Tricon entered into a license agreement with YGR to test multibranding options. The company also announced that its board of directors has approved a two-for-one split of the company's outstanding shares of common stock.
Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc, based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world's largest restaurant company in terms of system units with over 32,500 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. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
