Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) will report fourth-quarter and full-year 2014 earnings Thursday before the market opens. Thomson Reuters has consensus estimates for $0.66 in quarterly earnings per share (EPS) and $3.97 billion in revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2013, Yum reported $0.86 in EPS and $4.18 billion in revenue. For the year, analysts are looking for EPS of $3.14 on revenues of $13.23 billion, up from EPS of $2.97 and revenues of $13.08 billion in 2013.

Even though revenues and earnings are expected to be lower for the quarter, and the stock lost nearly 3% of its value last year, shares are up about 1.2% so far in 2015 and there are some reasons to believe that the trend is up going forward. First, the company’s Taco Bell chain had a good third quarter in the United States due to an expanded breakfast menu, and that should continue into the fourth quarter. Second, at least one analyst thinks that by spinning off the Taco Bell chain, Yum could insulate the company’s best performing division from its poorer performers. Janney analyst Mark Kalinowski told Barron’s that Taco Bell accounts for nearly 21% of the company’s operating profit.

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Speaking of poor performers, sales in China could drop by as much as 20% as a result of the October food scandal that hit the company’s KFC stores in that country, according to Kalinowski. Yum weathered a similar storm in late 2012 and most of 2013, but the company expects the fallout from the October 2014 scandal to last six to nine months.

One other development to watch is the turnaround effort at the company’s Pizza Hut stores. The changes are aimed at drawing in more millennial customers who have been avoiding fast-food joints in favor of fast-casual eateries like Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Yum’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is 20.72, and the stock’s price-to-book ratio is 12.84. The consensus target price on the stock is $79.00, which pencils out to a potential upside of about 7.3%. Not an awful lot of reward for some substantial risk.

Shares traded at $73.85 in the early afternoon on Wednesday, in a 52-week range of $65.81 to $83.58. The company’s market cap is $32.3 billion and it pays a dividend yield of 2.3% (a quarterly payment of $0.41 per share). Yum had just over $1 billion cash and short-term investments at the end of the third quarter, and a dividend hike of a few cents per share per quarter could tamp down demands for a spin-off.

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