River Road Asset Management LLC Acquires 151,288 Shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

River Road Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) by 196.4% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 228,337 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 151,288 shares during the period. River Road Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Global Payments were worth $28,999,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in GPN. State Street Corp raised its position in Global Payments by 1.3% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,819,457 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,138,638,000 after purchasing an additional 134,403 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in shares of Global Payments by 40.7% in the 3rd 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 last quarter. Boston Partners grew its holdings in Global Payments by 40.5% in the third quarter. Boston Partners now owns 5,142,771 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $591,613,000 after purchasing an additional 1,481,714 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its position in shares of Global Payments by 24.8% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 3,518,268 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $370,263,000 after purchasing an additional 698,913 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 3.4% during the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,499,860 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $403,849,000 after purchasing an additional 116,664 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Global Payments Stock Down 0.4 %

GPN opened at $122.95 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $130.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $124.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $31.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.53, a PEG ratio of 0.79 and a beta of 0.96. Global Payments Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $95.12 and a fifty-two week high of $141.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 0.99.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The business services provider reported $2.65 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.44% and a net margin of 10.22%. Global Payments’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.30 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Global Payments Inc. will post 10.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.81%. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio is currently 26.46%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently weighed in on GPN. UBS Group boosted their target price on Global Payments from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $185.00 to $180.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 15th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Global Payments from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. KeyCorp raised their price target on shares of Global Payments from $135.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on Global Payments from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $151.92.

Global Payments Company 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.