California Public Employees Retirement System Cuts Position in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

California Public Employees Retirement System reduced its stake in shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) by 4.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 474,290 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 22,942 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.18% of Global Payments worth $60,235,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 3.8% in the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,485 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $287,000 after purchasing an additional 91 shares in the last quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. increased its position in Global Payments by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 5,409 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $687,000 after purchasing an additional 93 shares in the last quarter. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. lifted its holdings in Global Payments by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. now owns 4,707 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $543,000 after purchasing an additional 94 shares in the last quarter. Wedmont Private Capital boosted its stake in shares of Global Payments by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 13,740 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,828,000 after purchasing an additional 98 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KB Financial Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Global Payments by 2.9% in the third quarter. KB Financial Partners LLC now owns 4,069 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $470,000 after buying an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GPN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $129.00 target price on shares of Global Payments in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. KeyCorp increased their target price on Global Payments from $135.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $185.00 to $180.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 15th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Global Payments from $150.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Global Payments from $154.00 to $172.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and twenty-one have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $151.92.

Global Payments Stock Performance

GPN stock opened at $124.63 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $129.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $124.58. The company has a market capitalization of $31.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.97, a PEG ratio of 0.82 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. Global Payments Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $95.12 and a fifty-two week high of $141.77.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The business services provider reported $2.65 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.64 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $2.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. Global Payments had a net margin of 10.22% and a return on equity of 11.44%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.30 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Global Payments Inc. will post 10.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.80%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.46%.

Global Payments 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.