By Bill Pan
Contributing Writer
Yum Brands is selling Pizza Hut in a pair of transactions worth a combined $2.7 billion, splitting ownership of the pizza chain between a U.S. private equity firm and a Chinese restaurant operator.
The company said on Tuesday that it will sell Pizza Hut’s operations outside mainland China to private equity firm LongRange Capital for approximately $1.5 billion. In a separate transaction, Yum China will acquire the chain’s mainland China business for about $1.2 billion.
Pizza Hut has three locations in the Santa Clarita Valley. A location on Seco Canyon Road in Saugus closed earlier this year.
Yum Brands said the transactions followed a strategic review and reflected its conclusion that Pizza Hut would be better positioned under owners whose expertise is tailored to their respective markets.
“Under LongRange and Yum China, Pizza Hut will be well positioned for future growth with ownership that brings deep expertise in the restaurant industry,” Yum Brands CEO Chris Turner said in a statement.
The deals followed years of struggles for Pizza Hut, which has lagged behind competitors and weighed on Yum’s overall performance.
In the United States, Pizza Hut has spent years transitioning away from its traditional dine-in model toward delivery and carryout.
Domino’s has steadily gained market share, while the rise of third-party delivery platforms has intensified competition for pizza orders.
Pizza Hut has also become a relatively small contributor to Yum’s profitability. According to the company’s latest earnings report, the chain’s growth continued to trail that of other Yum-owned major brands, namely KFC and Taco Bell.
During the first quarter of 2026, Pizza Hut generated $64 million in core operating profit, down 14% from $74 million a year earlier. By comparison, KFC generated $383 million in operating profit during the quarter, while Taco Bell contributed $281 million.
As part of the broader strategic review, Yum said in February it would close about 250 Pizza Hut locations in the United States — about 4% of its domestic footprint — during the first half of 2026. The U.S. market accounts for roughly 40% of Pizza Hut’s global sales.
The chain’s worldwide store count declined from 20,225 locations at the end of 2024 to 19,974 at the end of 2025.
A significant portion of those closures resulted from the termination of Pizza Hut’s master franchise agreement with its Turkish operator in early 2025, which led to the closure of 254 restaurants in Turkey.
Founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1958, Pizza Hut was acquired by PepsiCo in 1977. PepsiCo later spun off its restaurant division in 1997, creating what is now Yum Brands.
