Legal & General Group Plc Increases Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.3% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 12,458,913 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 399,845 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for 1.0% of Legal & General Group Plc’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Legal & General Group Plc owned about 0.68% of Visa worth $4,253,224,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of V. Sagard Holdings Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter valued at $31,000. Bare Financial Services Inc grew its stake in shares of Visa by 287.0% during the second quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 89 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Winnow Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa during the second quarter valued at about $40,000. Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 344.8% in the 3rd quarter. Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo LLC now owns 129 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $44,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sellwood Investment Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $52,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $385.00 price target on Visa in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Bank of America initiated coverage on Visa in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price objective for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group raised shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $370.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $392.65.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $316.03 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $328.80 and a 200 day moving average of $337.05. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $299.00 and a 52 week high of $375.51. The company has a market cap of $573.65 billion, a PE ratio of 29.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The credit-card processor reported $3.17 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.14 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $10.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.69 billion. Visa had a net margin of 50.23% and a return on equity of 61.74%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.75 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 10th were paid a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 10th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 25.14%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.18, for a total transaction of $3,661,152.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 9,401 shares in the company, valued at $3,282,641.18. The trade was a 52.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.12% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.