Legal & General Group Plc Buys 312,286 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises approximately 0.8% of Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings, making the stock its 14th largest holding. Legal & General Group Plc owned approximately 0.79% of Visa worth $3,783,857,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Hilltop National Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth approximately $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $404,000. Davidson Capital Management Inc. grew its position in Visa by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,588,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC increased its stake in Visa by 4.4% in the first quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $12,761,000 after purchasing an additional 1,914 shares during the period. Finally, Arjuna Capital lifted its position in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the second quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of a number of research reports. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 25th. Bank of America upped their target price on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler cut their price target on Visa from $322.00 to $319.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $322.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $310.22.

Visa Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of V opened at $271.69 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $496.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.36, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $227.78 and a 12 month high of $293.07. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $271.12 and its two-hundred day moving average is $273.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The business had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The company’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.16 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

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.