WESCAP Management Group Inc. Has $835,000 Stock Position in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

WESCAP Management Group Inc. raised its holdings in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) by 13.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 6,576 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 772 shares during the quarter. WESCAP Management Group Inc.’s holdings in Global Payments were worth $835,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Global Payments by 40.7% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 9,346,779 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,078,525,000 after buying an additional 2,703,434 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in shares of Global Payments by 338.3% during the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 3,288,108 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $379,416,000 after purchasing an additional 2,537,941 shares in the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Global Payments in the 3rd quarter valued at about $197,875,000. Boston Partners grew its stake in Global Payments by 40.5% in the 3rd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 5,142,771 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $591,613,000 after purchasing an additional 1,481,714 shares during the period. Finally, Alkeon Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Global Payments by 119.0% in the third quarter. Alkeon Capital Management LLC now owns 1,085,772 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $125,287,000 after acquiring an additional 590,000 shares during the last quarter. 89.76% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on GPN. B. Riley boosted their target price on shares of Global Payments from $180.00 to $186.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 5th. StockNews.com lowered Global Payments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday. TheStreet raised shares of Global Payments from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Global Payments from $160.00 to $145.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Global Payments from $182.00 to $150.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and twenty-one have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $150.00.

Global Payments Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of GPN stock traded up $0.83 on Friday, reaching $111.37. 3,191,218 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,029,470. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $127.50 and its 200 day simple moving average is $124.69. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.43 billion, a PE ratio of 22.10, a P/E/G ratio of 0.72 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. Global Payments Inc. has a 52 week low of $95.12 and a 52 week high of $141.77.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 14th. The business services provider reported $2.65 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $0.01. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.72% and a net margin of 13.40%. The company had revenue of $2.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.18 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.30 EPS. Global Payments’s quarterly revenue was up 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Global Payments Inc. will post 10.95 EPS for the current year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 28th. Investors of record on Friday, June 14th will be paid a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 14th. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 19.84%.

Global Payments Profile

Global Payments Inc provides payment technology and software solutions for card, check, and digital-based payments in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through two segments, Merchant Solutions and Issuer Solutions. The Merchant Solutions segment offers authorization, settlement and funding, customer support, chargeback resolution, terminal rental, sales and deployment, payment security, and consolidated billing and reporting services.