5 Blue-Chips Ready to Boost Dividends

Yum! Brands

But McDonald's isn't the only fast food name on our list of potential dividend hikers. The other is Yum! Brands (YUM). Yum! owns an array of popular quick service restaurant concepts, including KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Scale is massive for Yum! -- the firm has more than 37,000 stores in 120 countries, making it the largest restaurant network in the world.

While Yum!'s store performance can't compete with McDonald's (MCD earns more than twice as much per unit), it is besting the Golden Arches in one key market: China.

Yum! was first to the draw in China, bringing its popular American brands over to the People's Republic. Since then, it's also added local concepts like East Dawning and Little Sheep Hot Pot to its brand portfolio -- the latter has even spread its wings across the pond with a handful of locations spreading in the U.S. and Canada. China is a big market that holds the keys to serious growth for Yum!, and it's acting as a springboard to other emerging Asian markets like Vietnam and Malasia, where Yum should be able to get its store count even bigger than it is now.

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Like McDonald's Yum! is in solid financial shape with cash generation capabilities that easily cover the firm's debt payments with room for a bigger dividend. Even though Yum doesn't have a payout nearly as high as McDonald's, investors looking to capture growth in China could do worse than this $30 billion chain.

As of the most recently reported period, Yum! was one of the top holdings at Steven Cohen's SAC Capital.

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