Strs Ohio Takes $66.44 Million Position in Global Payments Inc. $GPN

Strs Ohio bought a new stake in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 678,525 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $66,441,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in GPN. Brighton Jones LLC acquired a new stake in Global Payments during the fourth quarter worth approximately $725,000. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 25,738 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $2,884,000 after purchasing an additional 1,798 shares in the last quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 123,027 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $13,786,000 after purchasing an additional 4,685 shares in the last quarter. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 19.5% in the 4th quarter. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp now owns 10,807 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,211,000 after purchasing an additional 1,765 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NorthRock Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Global Payments in the 4th quarter valued at $251,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, General Counsel Dara L. Steele-Belkin sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.00, for a total value of $172,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel directly owned 30,713 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,641,318. The trade was a 6.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 1.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on GPN shares. Mizuho raised Global Payments from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their target price for the company from $86.00 to $114.00 in a report on Friday, July 25th. UBS Group raised their target price on Global Payments from $85.00 to $93.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 7th. B. Riley reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Global Payments in a report on Wednesday, July 16th. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $100.00 price objective (up previously from $90.00) on shares of Global Payments in a report on Thursday, August 7th. Finally, TD Cowen downgraded Global Payments from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 21st. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nineteen have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $112.21.

Global Payments Trading Down 2.0%

NYSE GPN opened at $85.19 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $20.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.83 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. Global Payments Inc. has a twelve month low of $65.93 and a twelve month high of $120.00. The business’s fifty day moving average is $83.98 and its 200 day moving average is $84.32.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The business services provider reported $3.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.06 by $0.04. Global Payments had a return on equity of 12.47% and a net margin of 15.07%.The business had revenue of $2.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.93 EPS. Global Payments’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Global Payments Inc. will post 11.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Global Payments Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 12th will be given a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 12th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.2%. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 17.48%.

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.