Alberta Investment Management Corp Sells 26,824 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Key Points

• Alberta Investment Management Corp reduced its stake in Visa Inc. by 11.3%, owning 210,246 shares valued at approximately $73.68 million after selling 26,824 shares in the first quarter.
• Visa reported Q3 earnings per share of $2.98, surpassing expectations of $2.85, alongside a 14.3% increase in quarterly revenue compared to last year.
• The firm announced a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per share, with an upcoming payment date of September 2nd and a dividend yield of 0.7%.

Alberta Investment Management Corp decreased its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 11.3% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 210,246 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after selling 26,824 shares during the period. Alberta Investment Management Corp's holdings in Visa were worth $73,683,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 5.7% in the first quarter. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,507 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $528,000 after acquiring an additional 81 shares during the last quarter. Blue Rock Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $306,000. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 19.8% in the fourth quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 182,658 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $57,727,000 after acquiring an additional 30,185 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC now owns 2,568 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $811,000 after acquiring an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rafferty Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% in the fourth quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 610,517 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $192,948,000 after acquiring an additional 43,546 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on V. Mizuho upgraded shares of Visa from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and lifted their target price for the company from $359.00 to $425.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 5th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Citigroup started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. They issued a "buy" rating for the company. Evercore ISI started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. They issued an "in-line" rating and a $330.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a "buy" rating and a $410.00 price objective for the company. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $380.84.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 46,214 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $370.00, for a total value of $17,099,180.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 26,413 shares of the company's stock, valued at $9,772,810. The trade was a 63.63% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $353.82, for a total transaction of $3,053,466.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $190,001.34. This represents a 94.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 89,913 shares of company stock valued at $32,902,432 in the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Trading Down 1.9%

Shares of V stock traded down $6.66 on Friday, hitting $338.81. The stock had a trading volume of 8,655,366 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,746,410. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $254.51 and a twelve month high of $375.51. The firm has a market cap of $625.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.09, a PEG ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $355.06 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $346.34.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The company had revenue of $10.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.42 EPS. The firm's revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Visa's payout ratio is 23.05%.

Visa Company Profile

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.