Fiserv (NYSE:FI) to Repurchase 60,000,000 Outstanding Stock

Fiserv (NYSE:FI) announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, February 20th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback 60,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the business services provider to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on FI shares. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Fiserv from $214.00 to $239.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Fiserv from $255.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Fiserv from $230.00 to $233.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Stephens boosted their target price on shares of Fiserv from $255.00 to $270.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Fiserv from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Fiserv presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $239.83.

Fiserv Price Performance

NYSE:FI traded down $1.71 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $234.63. The company had a trading volume of 3,688,312 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,738,570. Fiserv has a 52-week low of $145.98 and a 52-week high of $238.00. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $213.26 and its 200-day moving average price is $197.74. The company has a market capitalization of $133.48 billion, a PE ratio of 43.53, a P/E/G ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86.

Fiserv (NYSE:FI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The business services provider reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.48 by $0.03. Fiserv had a net margin of 15.31% and a return on equity of 17.93%. As a group, research analysts expect that Fiserv will post 10.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Fiserv news, COO Guy Chiarello sold 45,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $235.55, for a total transaction of $10,599,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 227,711 shares in the company, valued at $53,637,326.05. This represents a 16.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.75% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Fiserv Company Profile

Fiserv, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides payments and financial services technology services in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through Merchant Acceptance, Financial Technology, and Payments and Network segments.