Unisphere Establishment Cuts Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Key Points

• Unisphere Establishment reduced its stake in Visa Inc. by 14.3% in the first quarter, resulting in ownership of 1,308,100 shares valued at approximately $458.4 million.
• Notably, several institutional investors increased their holdings in Visa, with Vanguard Group raising its position by 1.1% and GAMMA Investing LLC significantly boosting its holdings by 38,416.3%.
• Visa recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per share, with a payout ratio of approximately 23.05%, reflecting the company's ongoing commitment to returning value to shareholders.

Unisphere Establishment decreased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 14.3% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,308,100 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after selling 219,100 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up 4.0% of Unisphere Establishment's holdings, making the stock its 9th largest holding. Unisphere Establishment owned about 0.07% of Visa worth $458,437,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in V. EP Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in Visa by 6.6% in the first quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 246,003 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $86,214,000 after buying an additional 15,312 shares during the last quarter. First Manhattan CO. LLC. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 3.6% in the first quarter. First Manhattan CO. LLC. now owns 1,299,273 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $455,343,000 after purchasing an additional 45,615 shares during the last quarter. GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. raised its position in Visa by 1.5% during the first quarter. GW Henssler & Associates Ltd. now owns 81,440 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $28,542,000 after acquiring an additional 1,184 shares in the last quarter. Cigna Investments Inc. New grew its holdings in Visa by 6.5% in the first quarter. Cigna Investments Inc. New now owns 17,357 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $6,083,000 after purchasing an additional 1,064 shares during the period. Finally, Brave Warrior Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the first quarter valued at approximately $217,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company's stock, valued at $190,001.34. The trade was a 94.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 11,636 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $375.00, for a total transaction of $4,363,500.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 26,413 shares of the company's stock, valued at $9,904,875. This trade represents a 30.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 68,507 shares of company stock valued at $25,213,475. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company's stock.

Visa Price Performance

NYSE V traded up $0.28 on Wednesday, reaching $350.35. 4,035,793 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,490,003. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $268.23 and a 12 month high of $375.51. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $348.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $347.38. The company has a market cap of $642.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.21, a P/E/G ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52.

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

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Visa's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.05%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have weighed in on V. Citigroup initiated coverage on Visa in a research note on Monday, June 2nd. They set a "buy" rating on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Visa from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 2nd. Wall Street Zen raised Visa from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on Visa in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a "buy" rating and a $410.00 price target for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $383.17.

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.