KFC expects for future 

 5 Jan , 2013

OS ANGELES — KFC’s parent, Yum Brands, has warned that it expects 2013 earnings to shrink rather than grow as it struggles to manage a food safety scare in China and expects no return to growth in restaurant sales there until the fourth quarter.

Shares of Yum, a fast-food chain operator based in Louisville, Kentucky, fell 5.6 percent in after-hours trading Monday as Wall Street analysts and investors received the disappointing news. The company has been widely seen as a model for how a foreign company can do business in the complex Chinese market.

Still, Yum expects same-store sales in China to be down 25 percent for its financial first quarter for China operations, which includes only the full months of January and February. It said KFC same-store sales in China should perk up by the fourth quarter.

As a result, Yum forecast a “mid-single-digit” percentage decline in earnings per share for 2013. Yum had forecast growth this year in earnings per share of at least 10 percent, and analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S had expected the same.


REUTERS (2013)
Resource:   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/business/global/kfc-parent-suffers-after-china-scandal.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1393258821-X7Y15j5s0b4dtzqLlp3K5Q