River Road Asset Management LLC Grows Position in Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN)

River Road Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN - Free Report) by 158.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 491,331 shares of the business services provider's stock after buying an additional 301,358 shares during the period. River Road Asset Management LLC owned 0.19% of Global Payments worth $50,322,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Pzena Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Global Payments by 194.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 6,423,463 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $621,149,000 after acquiring an additional 4,240,388 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Global Payments by 188.1% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,157,728 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $109,857,000 after purchasing an additional 755,898 shares in the last quarter. Natixis lifted its position in Global Payments by 830.2% during the first quarter. Natixis now owns 589,520 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $78,795,000 after buying an additional 526,143 shares during the period. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC grew its holdings in Global Payments by 267.0% in the first quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC now owns 677,854 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $90,602,000 after purchasing an additional 493,164 shares during the period. Finally, D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 316.7% during the second quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. now owns 609,939 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $58,981,000 after purchasing an additional 463,568 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.76% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GPN has been the topic of several recent research reports. B. Riley cut their price target on Global Payments from $204.00 to $194.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $125.00 to $122.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Global Payments from $164.00 to $156.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reduced their price target on shares of Global Payments from $165.00 to $155.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 25th. Finally, William Blair cut Global Payments from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Global Payments currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $136.50.

Insider Buying and Selling at Global Payments

In other Global Payments news, CAO David M. Sheffield sold 1,651 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.73, for a total transaction of $166,305.23. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 20,531 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,068,087.63. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.98% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Global Payments Price Performance

Shares of GPN stock traded up $2.22 on Tuesday, hitting $107.37. 1,915,058 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,285,562. The firm has a market cap of $27.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.22, a PEG ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.93 and a quick ratio of 0.93. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $104.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $103.75. Global Payments Inc. has a 52 week low of $91.60 and a 52 week high of $141.77.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 7th. The business services provider reported $2.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $2.57 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.32 billion. Global Payments had a return on equity of 11.94% and a net margin of 13.61%. The business's revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.48 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Global Payments Inc. will post 11.05 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Global Payments Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.93%. Global Payments's payout ratio is 18.83%.

Global Payments Profile

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.