UPDATE: MasterCard Shares Surge On Upbeat Q4 Earnings

Shares of

surged more than 4% in pre-market trading after the company reported better-than-expected profit for its fourth quarter. The Purchase, New York-based company posted quarterly earnings of $801 million, or $0.69 per share, compared to $623 million, or $0.52 per share, in the year-ago period. Acquisitions had a $0.03 dilutive impact on EPS. Its revenue surged 14% to $2.42 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.67 per share on revenue of $2.39 billion. Purchase volume climbed 12% in local currency terms basis to $858 billion, while cross-border volume rose 19%. Processed transactions surged 11% to 11.6 billion. Gross dollar volume surged 13% on a local currency basis to $1.2 trillion. Total operating expenses rose 26% to $1.4 billion. During the fourth quarter, the company repurchased around 2.1 million shares of Class A common stock at a cost of around $155 million. “Despite a mixed global economy, we delivered solid results for the quarter and for the full year in 2014,” said Ajay Banga, president and CEO, MasterCard. “This year is off to a good start with several new wins, as well as renewals of some important customer agreements, with more in the pipeline. Looking ahead, we will continue to be at the forefront of our industry by driving payment innovation with solutions such as MasterPass, and by increasing electronic payments usage globally as demonstrated by our significant expanded acceptance footprint across Africa.” MasterCard shares gained 4.45% to $85.00 in pre-market trading.