Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Acquired by Versant Capital Management Inc

Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 23.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 4,526 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 858 shares during the quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,430,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on V shares. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Barclays raised their price target on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America upped their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $328.41.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE:V opened at $314.40 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The firm has a market cap of $585.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $308.44 and its 200 day moving average price is $285.08. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company Profile

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.