Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-six ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have assigned a hold recommendation and twenty have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $151.92.

GPN has been the subject of several analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded Global Payments from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. UBS Group upped their target price on Global Payments from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Global Payments from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. B. Riley increased their price target on Global Payments from $180.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 5th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on Global Payments from $138.00 to $137.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 15th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Global Payments

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of GPN. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Global Payments in the 4th quarter valued at about $365,933,000. FMR LLC increased its holdings 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 valued at $1,078,525,000 after acquiring an additional 2,703,434 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 338.3% in the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 3,288,108 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $379,416,000 after acquiring an additional 2,537,941 shares during the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Global Payments in the 3rd quarter valued at about $197,875,000. Finally, Boston Partners increased its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 1,481,714 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Global Payments Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of GPN opened at $124.68 on Tuesday. 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 has a one year low of $95.12 and a one year high of $141.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $31.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.98, a PEG ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $129.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.86.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The business services provider reported $2.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.64 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.18 billion. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.44% and a net margin of 10.22%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.30 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Global Payments will post 10.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.80%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio is currently 26.46%.

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.