(Reuters) - Yum Brands Inc (N:YUM), owner of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, said it expects to return as much as $13.5 billion (10.97 billion pounds) to shareholders by 2019 under a capital return program started in 2015, sending shares up as much as 3.6 percent on Tuesday.
Yum said it would increase franchise restaurant ownership to 93 percent, from 77 percent now, when its China business is spun off on Oct. 31. The company aims to be least 98 percent franchised by the end of 2018.
The company said it had bought back about $5.5 billion of shares as a part of its previously announced $6.2 billion capital return program, reducing its share count by about 16 percent.
Yum also said it would expand this plan, which would result in returning a total of $13.5 billion to shareholders, including dividends.
The company also said it would reduce annual capital expenditure to about $100 million in 2019, from about $500 million in 2015.
Yum's China business will begin trading on Nov. 1 on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol YUMC.
The new company, Yum China Holdings Inc, will become a licensee of Yum Brands in Mainland China and will have exclusive rights to KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
Yum last week reported its first same-store sales drop in five quarters in China, blaming anti-U.S. protests after an international court rejected China's claim to historic rights in the South China Sea.
Up to Monday's close of $87.39, Yum's shares had risen about 20 percent since the start of the year.