Pizza Hut is set to be sold for $2.7 billion. What does this mean for the current owner's business?

Yum! Brands is selling its Pizza Hut chain for $2.7 billion, divesting itself of an asset that has held back the company’s financial performance for years. The buyers will be the investment firm LongRange Capital and Yum China. Following the news of the sale, Yum! Brands’ stock surged.

Pizza Hut’s business outside of China will be acquired by LongRange Capital for $1.5 billion, while Yum China will purchase the chain’s Chinese division for $1.2 billion, Yum! Brands announced. After paying taxes, fees, and other expenses, the company expects to receive approximately $2.3 billion in net proceeds. The transactions are expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval.

The deal will allow Yum! Brands to focus on growing its key brands and increase shareholder value, the company notes, while Pizza Hut will gain owners with experience in the restaurant industry who will be able to devote more attention to growing the chain in its core markets.

This brings to a close Pizza Hut’s nearly 30-year history as part of Yum. The chain had been part of PepsiCo’s restaurant business since 1977, and after that division was spun off into a separate company in 1997, it became part of the portfolio of what would become Yum! Brands—alongside KFC and Taco Bell, as CNBC notes.

Recently, Pizza Hut has been Yum’s weakest asset. The chain’s share of the company’s total revenue has declined from 18% in 2019 to approximately 12% in 2025, according to Bloomberg. Pizza Hut’s sales remained just above $1 billion, while Yum’s total revenue grew by about 47% over the six-year period, reaching $8.2 billion, the agency notes.

The chain has been under pressure from its main competitor in the U.S. market, Domino’s, which has outpaced it in the development of delivery, digital services, marketing, and menu updates, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. “Pizza Hut’s results, on the whole, were disappointing. The strong performance of KFC and Taco Bell is overshadowed by Pizza Hut’s continuing decline in sales and profits,” explains Saunders.

Delivery services like DoorDash have created additional competition, according to CNBC. In 2025, the company entered into a partnership agreement with Domino's Pizza. Pizza Hut, however, was slow to transition from the traditional restaurant format—with dining rooms and salad bars—to a model focused on delivery and takeout, the network notes.

Yum! Brands shares rose 3.6% during trading on June 16 but closed the session up 2%. Since the beginning of the year, the company's market capitalization has increased by 4.2%.

The average target price for its shares is $174, which implies growth potential of about 10%, according to MarketWatch. The Wall Street consensus remains cautious: 12 analysts recommend buying Yum! Brands shares, while 17 others recommend holding them in a portfolio. No one is recommending selling.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor