Yum Brands may finally get to sell that dog Pizza Hut.

Mediocre Pizza! Sign me up.

What's better for health eating than bread, a ton of processed cheese and tomoto paste. Bring on the Ozempic.

Yum! Brands might have found a potential buyer for Pizza Hut

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Toward the end of last year, Yum! Brands, the behemoth behind KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, set tongues wagging in the fast-food world by announcing that it was exploring “a range of strategic options” for the latter brand, to help the pizza business “realize its full value.”

Now, with Reuters reporting that private equity firm LongRange Capital is in exclusive talks to potentially snap up the slice giant, it appears that the Hut reaching its true potential might mean doing so in separation from the Yum! Brands family.

Pie in the sky

While Pizza Hut might have established itself as a mainstay in the unending American pizza chain wars — opening its first branch in Kansas almost 70 years ago and ballooning to see its global store count reach just shy of 20,000 at the latest yearly count — the brand has undoubtedly lost some of its shine of late, especially alongside the impressive company it keeps under the Yum! Umbrella.

In 2025, Pizza Hut actually saw its systemwide sales slip for the second year in a row, down 2.4% to $12.8 billion. Meanwhile, the division’s same-store sales have also either sunk or stagnated for nine consecutive quarters now, as competition in America’s crowded pizza market heats up and Yum! continues to shut Huts or restore old-school interiors to try and retain some of the chain’s former glory.

Taco Bell, on the other hand, as the home of the fastest drive-thrus in America and the ever-important Crunchwrap, has been growing its sales in recent years. The taco chain has, at times, looked like a sole hope in the Yum! portfolio, leapfrogging Pizza Hut as its second-biggest brand for the first time in 2021 and not looking back since.

Taco Bell’s $18.4 billion systemwide sales figure for the last fiscal year is made even more impressive by the Mexican-inspired chain’s comparatively low store count, hauling in over $5.5 billion more than Pizza Hut in 2025 despite having less than half as many units around the world.