Yum! Brands: offers to buy China´s «Little Sheep»

Louisville / KY. (yb) Yum! Brands Inc. announced that it has submitted a preliminary proposal to Little Sheep Group Limited under which Yum! Brands would offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Little Sheep, other than a minority interest to be held by the chairman and other founding shareholders of Little Sheep. Little Sheep owns and operates Hot Pot concept restaurants primarily in China and is headquartered in Baotou, Inner Mongolia (CN). Its shares are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Yum! Brands currently owns 27,2 percent of the outstanding shares of Little Sheep. No formal offer has been made at this stage and any such offer, should one be made, would be made only after Yum! Brands has obtained all necessary regulatory approvals for the transaction. There can be no assurance that the current discussions between Yum! Brands and Little Sheep regarding the proposal will ultimately lead to an offer being made or, if an offer is made, that it will result in a completed transaction.

About: Yum! Brands Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world´s largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants with nearly 38’000 restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories. The company is ranked #216 on the Fortune 500 List and generated revenues of more than eleven billion USD in 2010. 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. A+W Restaurants is the longest running quick-service franchise chain in America. Outside the United States in 2010, the Yum! Brands system opened approximately four new restaurants each day of the year, making it a leader in international retail development.