Yum! Brands (YUM)

The thing to watch out for on this is speculation that they might get involved in the whole Burger King/Tim Hortons thing from a tax perspective. You might get the shares bid up a little bit on speculation, and she usually stays away from these scenarios.

She is still bullish on it. It is very dominant in China and one of the main reasons she owns it. 40% of profits come from China. They reported their same store sales last quarter and it jumped, then there were supplier issues. This is the time when you buy the name as China urbanizes.

This company and others were all using the same supplier, who has been taken out of the chain. This is a real growth stock and a quality run company. Expanding hugely in India. Dividend yield of 2.12%.

(A Top Pick Jan 7/13. Up 15.01%.) Had some difficulties in 2012 due to supply issues and then the avian flu hit. Margins declined. Feels those problems are temporary and are resolvable. 2014 should be a good year for them. Company is anticipating that comps in China in the last half of this year will be double digit once again.

(Top Pick Feb 9/13, Up 14.86%) Got stopped out in the middle of the year due to a flu breakout. He bailed and was even. Then the stock went higher. It came back down in the summer and he bought back in again. It went sideways for most of the year but is really a growth story in Asia, opening a restaurant every week, Taco Bell, KFC, etc. They have such an appetite in Asia for Western food. It is a great way to participate in the Asian market and the bird flu fears are behind them. The market is very resilient for them. There is great demand for the product over there. The market will assign higher multiples when they see the growth come in.

This was a top pick on Feb 8/13. Got wind that the poultry flu was going through China and scared the shoppers in stores so sold his holdings in May. Stock came back to where he thought it should be and he re-bought again in October.

(Top Pick Apr 29/12, Down 5.52%) He shrank the position. He is still short the stock. View is that China will grow at a fairly healthy clip and YUM can participate in that.

(A Top Pick August 1/12. Up 14.24%.) Still likes. They are going to have their short-term hiccups as they did in China. The Chinese consuming middle-class is supposed to grow from 300 million to 600 million by the end of this decade.

Likes the company and feels they have a number of high-quality brands. This has been the “go to” stock in the quick service restaurants for international growth. Very strong franchise growth in China. Got a little bit ahead of itself. He would look for a better entry point. There are better names in the US that are more domestically focused.

(A Top Pick June 12/12. Up 15.77%.) Has been running into some problems in China, which is a concern but long-term she expects the outlook for this company is very good. Still likes.

Trades at 20X earnings with a 2.1% yield but China is the big issue. The jewel in the crown is the Taco Bell franchise. The real crux of the issue is the KFC franchise in China with the avian flu. There are some negative issues about the story but they have some really great franchises that make a lot of sense and will do well over the long term. If you see a larger pullback in the stock, he would try to get it at around 15X earnings.

(Top Pick Apr 29/13, Down 4.45%) SHORT. It was not a month long thesis. There were missteps in China. There are some growth problems in China.

Recommended at $66.77 now at $69.64, total return up 6.55% Stroke of bad luck due to bird flu coming into the mix. Those types of things affect things for 2 or 3 quarters, and then they go back to normal. They are highly into developing contries, and are a long term growth name, with some short term bad luck.

SHORT: Had a number of problems. They run Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China which is about half of their operating income. First they ran into problems with the quality of their chickens which turned people off from their brand. This was then followed by the avian flu. An expensive stock at about 22X earnings. Yield of 1.98%.

A little bit more of a go-go stock than McDonald’s (MCD-N). Derive a lot of their growth from their Chinese growth. Had some hiccups in December. In spite of all their troubles, the price is not dropping that much so you are not getting paid for the risk you would be taking.