LGT Group Foundation Acquires 22,170 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

LGT Group Foundation raised its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 7.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 337,180 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 22,170 shares during the period. Visa comprises about 1.7% of LGT Group Foundation’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position. LGT Group Foundation’s holdings in Visa were worth $106,562,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 48.5% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 over the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on V. Barclays increased their price objective on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Bank of America increased their price objective on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. UBS Group raised their price target on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Susquehanna raised their price target on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $361.60 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $366.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $333.92 and a 200-day moving average price of $306.64. The company has a market capitalization of $671.77 billion, a PE ratio of 36.45, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.65%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

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.