Generali Investments Management Co LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Generali Investments Management Co LLC increased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 18.6% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 5,264 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 825 shares during the period. Generali Investments Management Co LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,845,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of V. Blue Rock Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth about $306,000. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 19.8% in the fourth quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 182,658 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $57,727,000 after purchasing an additional 30,185 shares in the last quarter. King Wealth Management Group increased its stake in Visa by 9.0% in the fourth quarter. King Wealth Management Group now owns 74,874 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $23,663,000 after purchasing an additional 6,172 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC now owns 2,568 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $811,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Generali Investments CEE investicni spolecnost a.s. acquired a new stake in Visa during the fourth quarter worth approximately $10,163,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Visa from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 27th. Mizuho raised shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $359.00 to $425.00 in a research report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Citigroup began coverage on Visa in a report on Monday. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on Visa from $395.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $372.80.

Visa Stock Down 0.4%

Shares of Visa stock opened at $366.67 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $371.00. The company has a market cap of $676.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.96, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $344.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $335.10.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $9.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.51 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 13th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 13th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.64%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.72%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.77, for a total transaction of $3,127,077.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $194,807.49. This represents a 94.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,575 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $345.58, for a total value of $889,868.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,121,041.50. This trade represents a 17.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 121,948 shares of company stock worth $41,546,299. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Visa

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.