Baillie Gifford & Co. Has $10.04 Million Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Baillie Gifford & Co. reduced its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 11.3% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 38,548 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 4,900 shares during the quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co.’s holdings in Visa were worth $10,036,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Tobam raised its stake in Visa by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. Tobam now owns 3,700 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $963,000 after acquiring an additional 145 shares in the last quarter. Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter worth $2,651,000. Fortune Financial Advisors LLC raised its stake in Visa by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. Fortune Financial Advisors LLC now owns 7,613 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,982,000 after acquiring an additional 326 shares in the last quarter. RFG Advisory LLC raised its stake in Visa by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 12,774 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,326,000 after acquiring an additional 527 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fortem Financial Group LLC raised its stake in Visa by 18.2% during the fourth quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC now owns 1,469 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $383,000 after acquiring an additional 226 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays raised their target price on Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Redburn Atlantic restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $307.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Citigroup raised their target price on Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Wedbush raised their price target on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $296.87.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $275.54 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $280.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $261.17. The company has a market capitalization of $506.03 billion, a PE ratio of 31.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.90 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $216.14 and a 1 year high of $290.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.18 EPS. Research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.94%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total transaction of $2,298,952.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $150,833.68. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total value of $2,298,952.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $150,833.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

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.