Yum China Holdings, Inc., backed by private equity firm Primavera Capital Group and Ant Financial Services Group, has completed its separation from parent Yum Brands and a U.S. trading debut at an opening price of US$24.51 apiece.
The stock gained 8.04% during the first day to close at US$26.19 on the New York Stock Exchange.
In September, Primavera and Ant Financial agreed to invest a total of US$460 million in Yum China, concurrent to the unit's spinoff from parent. The transactions were completed on October 31.
After the stock debut, which unlikely a traditional IPO essentially constitutes a direct distribution to shareholders, Yum China became a licensee of Yum! Brands in mainland China with exclusive rights to KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell.
Yum China also owns the Chinese hotpot restaurant chain Little Sheep and Chinese fast food chain East Dawning. In total, Yum China has more than 7,300 restaurants in over 1,100 cities, and generated over US$8 billion in system sales in 2015.
One of Yum China's key objectives after the spinoff is to aggressively open more new restaurants throughout China, particularly in subway stations, train stations, airports and other transportation hubs with huge amount of foot traffic.
Yum China has said that it planned to triple its restaurant count to 20,000 in the next three years.
In addition, Ant Financial is hoping to help Yum China better adopt the digital age with its online and mobile payment solutions.
Yum China started promoting its own food ordering mobile apps in China two years ago, and began offering online orders on external food delivery firms in 2015. Ant Financial is also expected to help Yum China on digital marketing and food delivery.
Primavera, founded by former Goldman Sachs executive Fred Hu, will be able to provide advice on localization to Yum China.