Yum! Brands, Inc. (or Yum!), formerly Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., is an American fast food corporation listed on the Fortune 1000. Yum! operates the brands KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill, except in China, where the brands are operated by a separate company, Yum China. Yum! previously also owned Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurants. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, Yum! is one of the world's largest fast food restaurant companies in terms of system units. In 2016, Yum! had 43,617 restaurants, including 2,859 that were company-owned and 40,758 that were franchised, in 135 nations and territories worldwide. History PepsiCo fast food division The company's history began in 1977, when PepsiCo entered the restaurant business by acquiring Pizza Hut. A year later, PepsiCo purchased Taco Bell. In July 1986, R. J. Reynolds sold KFC to PepsiCo to pay off debt from its recent purchase of Nabisco. In 1990, Hot 'n Now was acquired via Taco Bell, but the company was sold in 1996. In 1992, PepsiCo acquired California Pizza Kitchen. In 1993, it acquired Chevys Fresh Mex, D'Angelo Grilled Sandwiches, and the American division of Canadian chain East Side Mario's. These chains were later sold when PepsiCo exited the restaurant business and spun off KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (see next paragraph). In 1997, PepsiCo sold PepsiCo Food Systems restaurant-supply unit to Ameriserve Food Distribution Inc. Tricon Global Restaurants Yum! was created in 1997 as Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc. from PepsiCo's fast food division as the parent corporation of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurant companies. The decision was announced in January and the spin off was effected on 6 October. Tricon selected Louisville, also the site of KFC's headquarters, as its corporate headquarters. Taco Bell and Pizza Hut continued to be headquartered in Irvine, California and Dallas, Texas, respectively. In 2000, Tricon Global tested multi-branded locations with Yorkshire Global Restaurants. By March 2002, the Tricon-Yorkshire multibranding test consisted of 83 KFC/A&Ws, six KFC/Long John Silver's and three Taco Bell/Long John Silver's and was considered successful by the companies. In 2001, KFC started test restaurants in Austin, Texas, called "Wing Works", a chicken wing line sold with one of a few flavored sauces. KFC also hired a consultant to develop a breakfast menu. Yum! Brands Yorkshire in March 2002 announced it would merge with Tricon Global Restaurants to form Yum! Brands. The merger was finalized