Yum! Brands explores potential sale of struggling Pizza Hut

Yum! Brands has launched a strategic review of options for Pizza Hut following a fall in sales in the US and Europe.

 

While the company has not specified what the review will consider, it could include a sale of all or part of the business.

 

Yum! chief executive Chris Turner said: “The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands.”

 

In an earnings call, Turner said repositioning Pizza Hut in some markets could be a “multi-year effort” that “may best be done under a different structure, potentially under outside ownership”.

 

Pizza Hut has been part of Yum!’s flagship trio of brands alongside KFC and Taco Bell for decades.

 

On Tuesday, the group reported that Pizza Hut’s global system sales dropped 1% in the third quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year.

 

This included a 1% fall in Europe while sales also dipped 7% in the US, which is the chain’s largest market and accounts for over 40% of its revenue.

 

At the same time, KFC and Taco Bell reported a 6% and 9% rise in global system sales respectively.

 

The review comes after Yum! Europe saved 64 of Pizza Hut’s UK restaurants from administration last month.

 

However, 68 restaurants and 11 delivery outlets closed with over 1,000 job losses when franchisee DC London Pie collapsed into administration.

 

Pizza Hut opened its first UK restaurant in the early 1970s and expanded to hundreds of sites at its peak, but the closures have raised questions over its future on the high street.

 

Companies House filings show Yum! paid £3.7m to acquire 36 leasehold premises from DC London Pie and took on a further 28 in a separate agreement with a former franchise owner.

 

A report from administrators FTI Consulting said the UK Pizza Hut restaurants had struggled with negative like-for-like sales driven by growing competition from QSR rivals and delivery firms.

 

It was also hit by rising food and labour costs and faced millions of pounds of loan repayments.

 

HMRC issued a winding up petition against the company on 11 September over unpaid debts of around £9.9m.

 

Yum! has retained Goldman Sachs and Barclays for its wider strategic review and said there was no guarantee it would result in a transaction.

 

It has not set a deadline or definitive timetable for the process and said it would not comment further until it was “appropriate or necessary”.