Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Invests $2.50 Million in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 8,954 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $2,499,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,895,015,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Visa by 17,418.7% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,737,229 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,233,338,000 after purchasing an additional 4,710,188 shares during the period. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado lifted its position in Visa by 14,306.3% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,500,270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $390,595,000 after purchasing an additional 1,489,856 shares during the period. Capital World Investors lifted its position in Visa by 8.0% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,895,788 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,659,169,000 after purchasing an additional 1,323,238 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Visa by 139.4% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 2,185,077 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $568,885,000 after purchasing an additional 1,272,211 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total value of $250,474.95. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $713,950.05. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total transaction of $250,474.95. Following the sale, the director now owns 2,591 shares in the company, valued at $713,950.05. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of V traded up $2.25 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $267.71. The company had a trading volume of 5,281,181 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,847,520. The stock has a market cap of $489.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 0.95. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $272.00 and a 200-day simple moving average of $274.44. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $227.68 and a fifty-two week high of $290.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.43 by $0.08. Visa had a net margin of 53.87% and a return on equity of 51.23%. The business had revenue of $8.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.09 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.94 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 16th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.24%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have issued reports on V shares. Macquarie increased their target price on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. TD Cowen started coverage on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, April 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $320.00 target price for the company. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $321.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 17th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-one have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $304.72.

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.