Millington Financial Advisors LLC Purchases New Position in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

Millington Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 10,110 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,284,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Ritholtz Wealth Management raised its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 40.0% during the 3rd quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 4,915 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $567,000 after purchasing an additional 1,405 shares in the last quarter. Park Place Capital Corp raised its holdings in Global Payments by 14.6% during the third quarter. Park Place Capital Corp now owns 1,352 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $156,000 after buying an additional 172 shares in the last quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Global Payments by 0.9% in the third quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 45,934 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $5,192,000 after buying an additional 390 shares during the last quarter. Caprock Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Global Payments during the 3rd quarter worth about $288,000. Finally, CX Institutional acquired a new position in shares of Global Payments during the 3rd quarter valued at about $211,000. Institutional investors own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on GPN. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Global Payments from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $130.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Global Payments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Evercore ISI cut their target price on shares of Global Payments from $185.00 to $180.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Finally, KeyCorp raised their price target on Global Payments from $135.00 to $155.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and twenty have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $151.92.

Global Payments Price Performance

NYSE GPN traded up $2.72 on Tuesday, reaching $126.95. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,218,912 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,176,515. Global Payments Inc. has a 52 week low of $95.12 and a 52 week high of $141.77. The company has a current ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The firm has a market cap of $32.38 billion, a PE ratio of 32.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $130.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.47.

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

Global Payments Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.79%. Global Payments’s payout ratio is presently 26.46%.

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.