Yum Brands Inc (YUM) September 9, 2026 Conference Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. My name is Jeff Bernstein, and I'm the restaurant and food service distribution analyst here at Barclays. I should say, with news of my plans to retire, actually, at the end of this month, I'm the outgoing analyst with the next analyst still to be named. But after 25 years covering the restaurant and food service distribution sector, it's actually making me a little sad to be here over these three days. I feel like Barclays has thrown me a fantastic going-away party. So thank you all for joining us this morning. I should just mention that this is day two. We're excited to have 14 restaurant and food service distribution companies here over the three days. So just as a recap, we did have Cheesecake Factory, BJ's Restaurants, and Kura Sushi here yesterday. And today we've got 10, led by Yum, but otherwise we have Blumen and Dine Brands, First Watch, Performance Food Group, Restaurant Brands, Cisco, Texas Roadhouse, Wendy's, U.S. Foods, and Wing, Stop, and then Performance Food Group all by themselves tomorrow. We hope you find the conference a good use of time. We get a chance to chat in the halls between meetings. But at this point, I'd love to introduce our first presenting company, which is Yum! Brands. So with us on stage, we have Ranjit Roy, the CFO of Yum! Brands. For those not familiar, Yum! is a multinational quick-service portfolio comprised of three brands, KFC, Taco Bell, and Habit Burger, having recently sold off their Pizza Hut business in a successful transaction earlier this year. Just for background, Yum's long-term annual guidance is for 7% system sales growth, supported by 5% net unit growth, and ultimately resulting in 8% plus core operating profit growth. And again, most recently, the company announced the sale of Pizza Hut ex-China to long-range capital and the mainland China arm to Yum China so we want to thank you all very much for joining us and specifically Yum and I will now kick it off with some questions for Roy, the CFO thank you thanks Jeff thank you very much for joining us so I had a few bigger picture maybe consumer questions since you get to look at the world of consumer across your brands and I know it makes it hard to make generalizations so I'll just say that up front but if you could just maybe think about starting just with the US the health of the consumer obviously this is a consumer conference what do you look at to assess the health of the business obviously your brands along with just broader macro and have you seen any changes in trend whether an age group or income cohort or ethnicity or anything like that over the past year how would you lay that out?

Yeah, good question, Jeff. Look, obviously, as a brand that has the kind of footprint we do, both in the U.S. and internationally, we've got to focus a lot of time on thinking about how the consumer is doing. I'd say, as we think about the past year, there's probably two words we'd use. It's resilient and diligent, or consumers using discretion. Resilient because, frankly, I'm sure a lot of analysts in this room You know, we're always surprised and heartened by the strength of the consumer, whether that's, you know, kind of wages, unemployment being low, and so on and so forth, and consumer spending holding up. We're continuing to see that. But it's not just whether consumers are spending. It's in our business to win. It's about how they're spending, when they're spending, and why they're spending. And when you actually think about that, you know, we obviously, similar to many others, are seeing more strength in higher-income consumers and slightly lower growth, I'd say, in households making less than $100,000 a year. And that's something that I'm sure you see in a lot of companies that you cover. But in addition to that, the consumer is making choices. And the divergence in performance in our industry, I think, has never been higher than it is right now, i.e., consumers still need to eat out. Consumers are still going out and using restaurants as an affordable luxury for themselves, but they're making very deliberate choices about what they want and what they don't want. And we're seeing that in the divergence of results, particularly in the U.S. So when you think about Taco Bell in Q1 and Q2 of this year, Taco Bell demonstrated kind of mid-to-high single-digit same-store sales growth, clearly taking share from a lot of other players and benefiting from consumer spending. You know, and a lot of it comes down to really not just the consumer being strong, but us thinking about consumer sentiment, consumer love for our brand, what offerings are relevant, you know, how do we enhance our digital offerings to bring in younger consumers. And as a result of that, we saw transaction growth and dollar sales growth across all income cohorts in the U.S., with, of course, the strength being in the higher income and slightly lower growth than the lower-income consumer.

That's impressive resilience because clearly we have some that are winning and others that are struggling. When you think about food away from home, and I have to be careful to say this because I'm at a Staples conference with a lot of food at home peers, but the battle of food at home versus food away from home, we often like to say that food away from home continues to win in that battle versus food at home, but how would you describe that battle and maybe the most recent restaurant industry has pushed towards more value, how that's helped to continue to sway consumers on food away from home?

Oh, that's a great question. Like, look, we often get the question of food at home, food away from home. And look, as we look at the data, we see the gap in inflation and food away from home versus food at home has narrowed, i.e., you know, over the last couple of years, the restaurant industry in general has started to become more competitive versus food at home. And that means we probably are in a slightly more constructive pricing environment, we think, than in the last couple of years. But reality is, like, our business has not changed. So, you know, in the U.S., and Taco Bell is the vast majority of our business in the U.S., in the U.S., Taco Bell has always had a value-on mentality. I think when you look at the cycle of, you know, when people said restaurants took too much pricing, Taco Bell did not participate in that. You know, and so we've always had value. We've had very high value perception, and we continue to have that. But it's not just price. It is overall value, which includes are you relevant? Are you delivering a great experience to consumers? And, you know, in some of those areas, we continue to put a lot of effort in to make sure we stay ahead of the game.

And in terms of questions you get from investors, and I'm sure they cover a broad range, but what do you think you question? Maybe there's a misunderstanding about Yum from investors or perhaps questions that you're not getting that you're surprised that you think investors should be asking about Yum.

So I've been in my seat one year, for those who don't know me too well. So I have the benefit of CFOs and CEOs before me who've done a very good job telling the Yum story. And so as a result of that, I think we're pretty well understood entity out there. But a couple of questions that I think surprised me as I stepped into the seat, one is, at least in the early months, not so much recently, but in the early months, I get a lot of questions about, how is Taco Bell going to lap the lap? You had a really strong year last year. How are you going to repeat that this year? Are you going to do more innovation? Is it even possible to beat what you did last year? And I think that But we were surprised by that, because as we think about the business, Taco Bell has already put out 20, 30 targets of going from 2 million AUVs that they had in 2024, 2025, to 3 million AUVs. And through the first half of this year, they were already tracking ahead of that. In order to achieve that, you've got to have a very solid plan and a multi-year step change in performance, which they were well on the way of doing. and really the Taco Bell magic formula is something that is replicable every single year. You know, we just have a brand and an operating model that can do what it does and attract more consumers, more occasions, more frequency every single year for many years to come. And so we have a lot of confidence. We don't really think about it as lapping the lap. We just think about it as like, you got to get to 3 million plus AUVs and if you back out it from that, of course you've got to deliver strong same-store sales growth and you have to lap it. I'd say the second question more recently that surprises me a little bit is, some people ask, hey, KFC Global is obviously a powerhouse in all these different 150 different markets, but you have chicken competitors in the U.S. that are starting to make inroads, whether that's opening in the U.K. or in Singapore or in the Middle East, you've got a few units opening. How do you think about competition? And I think the degree of concern surprises me a little bit because, to be clear, we are paranoid about competition. Every time Wingstop or Chick-fil-A opens one unit somewhere, everyone's walking around the hallways of Yum talking about how we're going to win. But make no mistake, the scale of global KFC is tremendous. Like last quarter, we opened 660 gross new units around the world. We have a presence of 150 markets. In many of those markets, we are the number one QSR player, period. There's nothing else close to us across the entire industry. And when you think about the 660 units, that's like opening 220 gross new units every month. 220 gross new units, that's like a mid-market private equity investment. So every month, we are spawning a new mid-market private equity investment all around the world, and we have the ability to replicate that. So the scale advantages we have globally are tremendous, and you couple that with the extreme paranoia in the company that we are not going to be complacent about our leadership. We're going to go and earn it every day, and that includes modernizing the brand, innovating and continuously changing how we do business. I think the combination of that is extremely powerful.

I have to say, over the past couple of decades of covering YUM, the statistic that you just threw out, especially at investor days and whatnot, of opening up, I mean, this is just KFC, but a store every three hours around the world somewhere, a new KFC opening with a new team. It's hard to understand the spreadsheet that we look at, but clearly it is a machine.

Yeah, the thing that, you know, you really have to visit some of these international markets to understand it, because I think a lot of us in the U.S. see KFC in the U.S. KFC in the U.S. is not the true representation of KFC anymore. You know, the U.S. chicken market is obviously extremely competitive. We're making, you know, changes to KFC to make it more competitive over time. Internationally, KFC is just a beast. And, you know, we're so proud of, you know, whatever, the number of 70 years of investment overseas that have led to 35,000 restaurants in virtually every country out there where the brand is a leader.

And just one last industry question perhaps is the topic of GLP-1s, which ebbs and flows depending on the quarter or the year, but it would seem like it is a very viable threat to the restaurant industry more so than perhaps others.

I'm wondering, well, that's just because access is more valuable, the price is coming down. do you think the industry and or YUM in particular has been impacted at all or is there something that you anticipate over the next few years or how do you think about that impact Yeah, Jeff the GLP ones we all know are real we've been thinking about it for several years now because of our scale we have the benefit we talk about Collider our in-house consumer insights group they've been studying it for several years now and alongside a number of other consumer trends, we do put GLP-1s in there as a trend that's out there that we need to adapt to. That's not new to us. We've been adapting to consumer trends and preferences for a long period of time, and we're going to have to continue to do that. In our minds, even if you can't measure discrete impacts, and as you point out every quarter, people say, like, is it having an impact? If the pendulum keeps swinging, the reality is it is going to have some impact in things like portion sizes, protein consumption, hydration, snacking, usage occasion, shifting. And our view is twofold. One, we're not going to over-rotate to any single consumer trends. This is part of a spectrum of consumer trends where the consumer is changing, and we have to adapt to it. This is part of the spectrum. And secondly, we're not going to over-rotate to just GLP ones. And the second part is we've got to be flexible and adapt. So when you think about what we're doing in our business from an innovation standpoint, making sure we have enough choices available for consumers to shift over to things that they want. Beverages are a good point. The push we're making on beverages, whether that's Live Must Cafe, which is the store within the store at Taco Bell that we're testing right now, or Quench, which is KFC Global's version of enhanced beverages that we are rolling out around the world, you're going to start to see things across our portfolio that adapt to where the consumer is going, but I would put GLP-1s as a factor in a number of factors that consumers care about that we have to adapt to, and we will.

And as we sit here now in September and the fall of 26, if we were to look forward for the next 12 months, is there one or two initiatives that you'd say is most focused on that we'll look back on and say, oh, 2027 was the year of something in particular?

2027 is going to be an extraordinarily exciting year from where we're sitting. The biggest thing is really it's going to be the first clean look at our portfolio post the separation of Pizza Hut. If you remember, Yum used to be Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and The Habit. Pizza Hut comprised about 10% to 12% of our operating profit, but you can imagine it took a lot of time, resources, and focus to manage it. With Pizza Hut now exiting the portfolio, I think we're very excited about putting our energy into acceleration of growth. Chris Turner, our CEO, has been out talking about raising the bar, which includes the battle for the future consumer, accelerating unit economics, and expanding the reach of Byte. There's a number of work streams underway at the company right now that will start to play out over the course of the rest of this year in 2027 and just the freedom to be able to pursue them with more focus having a more concentrated portfolio is very exciting

right and as we think about the go forward as you mentioned people are often asking about taco bell and comp and the comp like what's the discussion like between for the portfolio between yum corporate and franchisees in terms of how to balance in a strategic way, check and traffic, and perhaps how to best, like you said, bring in or improve the trends with that lower-income consumer?

Check and traffic. I'd say, look, first of all, when we talk about franchisees, we have a great relationship with our franchisees. We're very happy with the franchisees we have. We probably have the best franchisee network in the business. So from a partnership standpoint, we're very pleased. There's a very good alignment. When you think about check and traffic, I don't think we actually sit around and say, hey, how much should we take check up, and how much will the impact be on traffic? We don't look at that in isolation. What we really think about is how do we bring the Taco Bell magic formula to life, which is, first of all, brand buzz. We've got to have a young, relevant brand for consumers. Secondly, we've got to have strong innovation, which means it's nice to have buzz and cultural relevance, But behind that buzz, you've got to have real products that consumers care about. So how do we keep a very strong innovation pipeline going that keeps consumers wanting to come back? Third part of the magic formula is value, ensuring that we have a strong value platform day in and day out, which means you think about price points. We've got a luxe value menu where we have 10-plus items under $3. I mean, you can actually go get a cheesy wrap at Taco Bell for $1.19. You can get a spicy potato taco for $1.29. You can get a beef burrito for $2.50. That kind of headline value is just fantastic for us to have. But what we do with that value is to drive check higher by having then above that a luxe value menu, which includes a $3 box, a $5 box, $7 box, $9 box. And that allows us to drive some pretty strong check growth while having strong value perception because of the kind of architecture we have. And then lastly, it's digital, right? Like if we can have more digital transactions, and we've grown digital transactions at Taco Bell from a low single-digit percentage about seven years ago to now it's almost 50% of the business today, and it is trending higher. If we can drive digital, that results in a better consumer experience, more frequency, better upsell, higher check averages. And so when you talk about traffic versus check, we don't think of it as pricing necessarily driving that. It's all those elements of the magic formula driving more consumers to the brand, which is traffic, and each consumer coming in buying more, which drives check. and presumably having multiple brands you can talk between brands the ability for Taco Bell to share some of their successes with KFC I assume that's a very powerful combination the ability to cross pollinate is very strong it's not just brand learnings but also talent so one of the exciting things is a change we made a year and a half ago at this point where one of the key leaders in Taco Bell, Scott Mizwinski, who drove a lot of the thinking behind the Consumer Day and the 2030 targets they set, was moved over to be CEO of Global KFC. So you can think about all his learnings in Taco Bell being moved now to rub off on KFC Global. And Scott is on the warpath around the world talking about how KFC, I mean, KFC is going to do it in a KFC-specific way, to be clear. but there's elements of Taco Bell's magic that can rub off whether that's bolder marketing, stronger innovation a greater focus on value all of those things are coming to life in KFC and that's exciting we had kicked it off with Taco Bell especially in the US being the biggest brand by far but I think when you reported the second quarter you had said that trends started the third quarter very strong prior to industry issues around cyclospora and you guys talked about steps taken to address the food safety concerns there I'm happy to say I don't hear as much about that anymore and I'm just wondering if there's any update you can provide on just how you think about the recovery from something like that and how it's progressing yeah look the you never want to have you never want to have food safety and a brand in the same sentence ever like you know we put so much work into trying to ensure that's not the case and earning consumers trust every day That's far and above the most important thing for us. And so we're proud about a few things, and I will provide a little bit of an update, but we're proud about a few things in going through the last couple of months. Firstly, we're really proud about how our team showed up and did the right thing at the right time. And so our teams and our franchise partners took proactive action at the right time to ensure that consumer trust was maintained. That's the first thing we're thankful of. Second thing we're thankful of, the way consumers have continued to rally to the brand. So as we mentioned in our QT earnings call, when we do measures of brand trust, brand love, brand sentiment online, that as you can imagine we track rigorously, we feel very good that the long-term health of the brand remains intact and the long-term potential of the brand remains intact. So we're very grateful for the way consumers have reacted. Thirdly, we are grateful for the way actually the investor community has reacted because you mentioned what questions do you get that surprised you. We haven't got a ton. Everyone's concerned about it. They want us to do the right thing, and people have been supporting us in making sure we do the right thing for consumers, and so we're thankful for that. The net result of that is, as we said in Q2, we saw the most impact the weekend of July 18th. You know, and I think we're pleased to say that as far as we can see, the Taco Bell recovery remains on plan. What does on plan mean? As we said in our Q2 earnings, that means sequential, generally sequential week over week improvement in sales strengths. And at this point, we see several days with positive sales in the U.S., which gives us confidence in the future. And most importantly, there's not a victory lap yet, but I think we have quiet confidence that the long-term potential of Taco Bell remains unchanged. That's great.

The KFC brand, you've mentioned the brand in the U.S. is different than the brand around the world. As we think about the U.S. business, the competition is obviously very intense in the chicken category. How do you think about the biggest opportunities to, I'm sure it's difficult to say, oh, International is doing great. This is not a representation of what the U.S. business looks like. So what do you think you're most excited about over the next 12 plus months with new leadership and whatnot to turn KFC into the success story, at least in the U.S., that we've seen the talk about?

Yeah, look, we've been very honest about KFC U.S. KFC U.S., the chicken category in the U.S., it's crowded, but it's a large and attractive category overall. KFC U.S. just happens to have a legacy of bone-in chicken dating back to the 80s and 90s in the U.S. In some ways, we talk about how KFC marketers were almost too successful back in the 80s and 90s, creating the icon of the bucket and focusing on large shared value and family signing together. That's not where the chicken industry is today in the U.S. We've got two decades of steady decline, I'd say, or at least share loss in the U.S. We're on the path of reversing that. One of the first steps we took in that regard was to put new leadership in place. and when you think about the leadership team we have at KFCUS, Catherine Tan-Gillespie, Tiffany, you know, we hired the CMO from Wingstop. You look at the leadership or the players we put on the field, we put the best players on the field. Second thing we did was we got alignment with our franchise partners. And so, you know, there was alignment on the 2026 marketing calendar and additional investment from the franchisees towards that marketing. It's never easy to line up additional marketing with franchise partners, but we're glad we got that alignment with the franchise system. At this point, we've seen, we talk about it as green shoots. Green shoots meaning we're seeing some positive same-store sales for several quarters now, which KFC has not had in a while, but it's still green shoots. We've got a long way to go. This performance is not sufficient to bring KFC all the way around, but you think about the legacy of the brand and the 20 plus years it took to get here we are not going to turn it around in four quarters but our hope is certainly to do it a lot faster than 20 years yeah good oh and to be clear Jeff the one thing I like to remind people is KFC US is you know materially less than 5% of our operating profit so when you think about the size of KFC US in our portfolio We're only going to commit resources, capital, time, effort, commensurate with its size in our portfolio.

That surprises me a lot when we get the question of KFC U.S. I ask it only because we are in the U.S. It's what people see, but obviously having traveled with Yum around the world, we have seen a much different KFC, which brings me to just the rest of the world, and it's hard to capture a forum like this. We've been with Yum to China. It seems like that is a key focal point for the international business. I'm just wondering, and again, it's its own public company, so obviously you can't share much beyond what they've shared, but what are you most excited about specific to the China business more broadly that that's such a powerhouse for the Yum portfolio?

Look, we couldn't have a better partner than Yum China in China. It is their largest restaurant company in China. KFC is one of the largest consumer brands in China, period. And look, China, they're their own public company. It is a tough macro environment, as everyone knows. It's been a deflationary environment for a time with challenges on consumer spending. But when you think about the penetration of KFC in China, it continues to increase. And so when you think about the number of new restaurants that are going from, I mean, back in the day, they used to be in Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. I think at this point we're talking about Tier 8 and Tier 9 cities where KFC is opening up. And so it's almost the deeper and deeper the brand gets penetrated in China and builds density in higher-tier markets, we have a lot of confidence that they can continue to do that. The second thing is just from an ops perspective. There is no better operator of restaurants or even any sort of retail concept in China than Yum China.

And so a lot of confidence in their future. when we think about international most people think about KFC and historically thought about Pizza Hut and not necessarily Taco Bell so much and I know for years it's been let's take Taco Bell overseas can you just talk about your confidence in that being the next leg of material growth for the international portfolio to get Taco Bell maybe where have you had your greatest success and maybe where you've had your challenges Taco Bell has been almost like a quiet growth story inside of Yum.

At this point, we have, I think, about 1,200 stores heading to 1,300 stores in Taco Bell International. Several years ago, we had like 500 or 600 stores, so we doubled the restaurant count. I mean, I guess the challenge is, like when you're in Taco Bell International and you've got Yum with 45,000 restaurants, ex-Pizza Hut, a few hundred stores just gets lost in the mix. However, I will point out, there are a few things that are changing. Historically, I think there was a perception that Mexican-inspired cuisine may not have legs internationally. I think that's changing rapidly. As consumer trends are converging, what's cool in different parts of the world is really converging in all elements of consumers, whether that's, I don't know, fashion, automobiles, you think about music and other things in culture. Trends are converging. The restaurant industry and food preferences or no difference. Mexican-inspired cuisine is becoming cooler everywhere, and we're seeing that. And you can see the evidence in the kind of franchise partners we're attracting in different markets, the number of new markets we're going into, and the performance of Taco Bell restaurants in a number of parts of the world, whether that's in the UK, in Spain, In India, there's a number of key markets that are growth opportunities for Taco Bell where same-store sales are like double digits in many cases. And we haven't seen that happen consistently for multiple quarters and lapping that year over year. We haven't seen that historically. So something has changed, and I think part of that is where the world is going. Part of that is actions that Taco Bell has taken where they are putting more resources out into the field and taking a closer look at how the brand is brought to life in different markets because there's a difference. What we realize is the difference between KFC and Taco Bell. KFC can go to any market and as long as you're selling fried chicken, it just works. And so you could take an entrepreneurial GM, which is what even before Yum! PepsiCo did. They sent entrepreneurial GMs around the world and you could set up KFC, and as long as you sold fried chicken and you kept the brand somewhat consistent, it would work. Taco Bell is a little different. A lot of parts of the world people don't even know how to eat a taco. They think it's cool, but it requires some education. The magic formula of Taco Bell that works so well in the U.S., it's not as easily understood by local teams and franchise partners, and so we have to take a closer look at each market and bring that to life, and the Taco Bell team is doing that. Take the combination of those two things. The world is changing and we're executing differently. I think the long term, frankly, I know we've talked about, I think about $3 billion in system sales in Taco Bell International by 2030. I personally believe the potential is a lot higher and the signs we're seeing point to unlimited potential for Taco Bell in the future internationally. It's very encouraging. where I know back in the day it was how are you going to take a Mexican brand that's been Americanized and then bring it around the world but it seems like it's growing in popularity yeah look even in the US you think about it part of the reason we're so successful we're a category of one in the US KFC is a category of one internationally in chicken Taco Bell has the opportunity to be the category of one internationally in Mexican inspired cuisine and make no mistake Mexican inspired cuisine even in the US is cool cool now. I mean, some of the stats we look at, since we've got folks from the staples industry, tortilla chips now outsell potato chips in the U.S. Salsa and hot sauce outsell ketchup. Consumers, it's not a Hispanic consumer, it is the consumer, period, thinks this is cool. And that trend is happening around the world.

Well, we talked a lot about the comp side of things, which tends to be volatile across the industry and across brands. The Unicross, I think, is the story that's perhaps underappreciated. It seems like the magic number across the franchise QSR world is can we get to 5% unit growth? You guys have consistently been delivering the 5% unit growth. I just want to talk about your confidence, the franchisees' confidence in being able to sustain it on a larger and larger base, especially now. You're down to really two core global brands, along from three. But your confidence in sustaining the 5% and 26% in the long term?

Look, the KFC, I think we're setting the Q2 earnings. This year, KFC will have a record year of net unit development with more units opened and more markets around the world. We have a lot of confidence. When you think about the paybacks KFC is getting, so a number of KFC franchisees are publicly traded, so you can actually go and read the commentary and see what the kind of paybacks are in KFC. In the Middle East, Americana gets $1.5 million AUVs, and they get two- to three-year paybacks. When you get two- to three-year paybacks, it's a no-brainer to keep opening restaurants. Yum China, you brought up, market with thousands and thousands of KFCs, and they still say when they open a new KFC, they get a two-year payback. So when you have paybacks like that in very different parts of the world, it's a no-brainer. If you have a well-capitalized franchisee, which we do, they're going to open units. It's the right thing to do, and it's going to make the brand much bigger. So we have a lot of confidence in sustaining record development. So where's the opportunity for us? I think the opportunity for us is really in other markets where maybe the paybacks aren't as phenomenal. So I think we brought up places like Latin America where we recently changed franchisees, number of operational changes, and now unit growth is accelerating. We want to replicate that in places like Western Europe. Historically, we've been underpenetrated in Western Europe relative to some of our competitors. And the good news, and that's what we get excited about, is if we can crack some of those markets, those are some of the highest AUV markets in the world. And so our goal is to crack that because a unit open in Western Europe equals multiple units opened in the emerging markets. And therefore, it is a huge opportunity that we have to go after.

And when I think of Yum in our final couple of minutes, we had always thought of it as a multi-brand portfolio. Leo, you've now removed one brand from that. Is the thought process that you need to add another big brand, or are you comfortable if over the next number of years it is primarily led around the world by KFC and Taco Bell?

First of all, look, the fact that we divested Pizza Hut in the past year should signal to everyone that we are prepared to make bold moves around our portfolio where it makes sense. So if the question is, would we add another brand? Sure, if it makes sense, we will do it. We're open to the idea. That said, it is about discipline in our portfolio. And if you look at the amount of growth opportunities we have ahead of us, we could spend all day right now accelerating growth at KFC, Taco Bell, and Habit, and we wouldn't have much time to spare. So when you think about adding another brand, I think a huge part of our focus is first, have we really raised the bar in our existing brands? We have a bunch of work to do over the next several months and over the next year. We're going to do that. Our focus is relentlessly on making sure we have a healthy portfolio and maximizing value for shareholders. And in our capital allocation right now, I think we have the ability to do that. Our first priority is investing in our current businesses. We'll continue to do that. Historically, we've never starved the businesses of investment. We're going to continue to do that. We're going to maintain a healthy balance sheet. We're going to be a competitive dividend, and we're going to return substantial capital to shareholders along the way.

I'm glad you mentioned that because we are out of time, but, boy, we could talk about Yum's portfolio and business for the next hour if we wanted to. So I would encourage investors to hit him up on capital allocation and G&A spend and all the other things that we haven't gotten a chance to talk about up here. But time is up, so we wanted to thank Yum and Roy in particular and the Yum team that's taken up the entire first row. So we very much appreciate your attendance here today. We hope people get a chance to meet with management throughout the day today. But again, thank you, Roy, very much for joining us. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Barclays. And thank you, everyone, for showing up bright and early in the morning to see us.