LMR Partners LLP Takes $2.47 Million Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

LMR Partners LLP acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 7,807 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $2,467,000.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after purchasing an additional 7,079,706 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 40,345,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,729,901,000 after purchasing an additional 1,689,926 shares during the period. Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of Visa by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,816,573 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $7,526,660,000 after purchasing an additional 866,596 shares during the period. Capital World Investors boosted its position in shares of Visa by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 23,277,622 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $7,356,614,000 after purchasing an additional 241,057 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in Visa by 18.0% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 18,260,714 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,771,116,000 after acquiring an additional 2,785,707 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on V shares. Barclays increased their price objective on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Macquarie decreased their price objective on Visa from $400.00 to $380.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Citigroup reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their price objective on Visa from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $362.38.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $356.13 on Wednesday. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $366.54. The company has a market capitalization of $661.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.90, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $337.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $328.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.76 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $9.59 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.57 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Visa’s revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.51 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 13th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 13th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.72%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.44, for a total value of $3,020,792.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $188,186.28. The trade was a 94.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 14,813 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $355.04, for a total value of $5,259,207.52. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,377,671.52. This represents a 35.93% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 121,948 shares of company stock valued at $41,548,282. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Profile

Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services.