Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. Increases Holdings in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) by 5.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 679,889 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 34,157 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. owned 0.26% of Global Payments worth $86,346,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in GPN. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Global Payments by 40.7% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 9,346,779 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,078,525,000 after buying an additional 2,703,434 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Global Payments during the 4th quarter valued at about $261,300,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Global Payments by 338.3% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 3,288,108 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $379,416,000 after buying an additional 2,537,941 shares in the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Global Payments during the 3rd quarter valued at about $197,875,000. Finally, Boston Partners raised its position in shares of Global Payments by 40.5% during the 3rd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 5,142,771 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $591,613,000 after buying an additional 1,481,714 shares in the last quarter. 89.76% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on GPN. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Global Payments from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. TheStreet upgraded shares of Global Payments from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Global Payments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Global Payments from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Global Payments from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $151.92.

Global Payments Trading Down 0.4 %

NYSE GPN opened at $122.95 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $130.89 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $124.21. The stock has a market cap of $31.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.53, a P/E/G ratio of 0.79 and a beta of 0.96. Global Payments Inc. has a 12-month low of $95.12 and a 12-month 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.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.64 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $2.43 billion for 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 quarterly revenue was up 7.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.30 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Global Payments Inc. will post 10.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.25 dividend. 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 0.81%. Global Payments’s payout ratio is currently 26.46%.

About Global Payments

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.