Paloma Partners Management Co Purchases 138 Shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

Paloma Partners Management Co raised its position in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) by 4.5% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 3,180 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 138 shares during the quarter. Paloma Partners Management Co’s holdings in Global Payments were worth $425,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in Global Payments in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. LRI Investments LLC purchased a new stake in Global Payments in the first quarter worth about $32,000. West Paces Advisors Inc. increased its position in Global Payments by 54.5% in the first quarter. West Paces Advisors Inc. now owns 309 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 109 shares in the last quarter. McGlone Suttner Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Global Payments in the fourth quarter worth about $41,000. Finally, North Star Investment Management Corp. increased its position in Global Payments by 154.7% in the first quarter. North Star Investment Management Corp. now owns 354 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $47,000 after buying an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Global Payments

In other Global Payments news, VP Andrea M. Carter sold 3,300 shares of Global Payments stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.34, for a total transaction of $367,422.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 25,209 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,806,770.06. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.98% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on GPN. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on Global Payments from $182.00 to $150.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on Global Payments from $143.00 to $128.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. KeyCorp cut their target price on Global Payments from $155.00 to $145.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. TD Cowen cut their target price on Global Payments from $152.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Finally, Evercore ISI cut their target price on Global Payments from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, June 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and twenty-one have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Global Payments presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $145.32.

Global Payments Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of GPN stock traded up $0.38 on Monday, reaching $101.57. 1,135,000 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,302,129. Global Payments Inc. has a 52 week low of $91.60 and a 52 week high of $141.77. The company has a current ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.93 billion, a PE ratio of 20.15, a P/E/G ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 0.98. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $98.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $117.15.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The business services provider reported $2.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.41 by $0.07. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.72% and a net margin of 13.40%. The firm had revenue of $2.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.17 billion. As a group, analysts forecast that Global Payments Inc. will post 11.09 EPS for the current year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 14th were given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 14th. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 19.84%.

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.