Hosking Partners LLP Trims Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Hosking Partners LLP reduced its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 32,543 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 91 shares during the period. Hosking Partners LLP’s holdings in Visa were worth $10,285,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Riverstone Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $217,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 16.4% during the fourth quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,058,000 after buying an additional 1,361 shares during the last quarter. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth $616,000. Calamos Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 77,443 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $24,475,000 after purchasing an additional 435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Oak Ridge Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 5.9% in the fourth quarter. Oak Ridge Investments LLC now owns 75,456 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $23,847,000 after purchasing an additional 4,198 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 price objective (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Trading Up 2.1 %

Shares of V opened at $363.33 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $364.00. The company has a market cap of $674.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $333.03 and its 200-day simple moving average is $305.66.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.65%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

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.