Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd. Decreases Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd. trimmed its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 85.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,637 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 86,752 shares during the period. Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd.’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,197,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in V. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the first quarter valued at $3,518,533,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $56,452,949,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,088 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Visa by 17.7% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,979,720 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,847,953,000 after purchasing an additional 1,651,954 shares in the last quarter. MUFG Securities EMEA plc purchased a new position in Visa during the first quarter valued at $373,240,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 7.2% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 14,277,146 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,003,569,000 after buying an additional 955,392 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total transaction of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total transaction of $3,589,015.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $183,815.10. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Robert W. Baird set a $410.00 target price on shares of Visa and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 6th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 2nd. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $415.00 target price (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $408.00 target price (up from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $389.00.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $335.01 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $280.78 and a 12-month high of $375.51. The stock has a market cap of $614.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.72, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $344.20 and a 200 day moving average price of $346.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The firm had revenue of $10.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.82 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.42 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.05%.

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.