Global Payments Inc Surges On Morgan Stanley Upgrade

Morgan Stanley upgraded Global Payments Inc GPN from Underweight to Equal-Weight and raised its price target from $66 to $74.

Analysts led by Smittipon Srethapramote observed that “following several acquisitions it has completed/announced recently...GPN has considerably reduced exposure to the slowing ISO channel, while expanding distribution through faster growing direct channels such as integrated payments and gaming.”

Srethapramote also noted that international markets have “continued to outperform our expectations driven by strength in Spain and the e-Commerce business, while the acquisition of Ezidebit in Australia should be additive to the company's revenue and margin profile.”

The report explained that the firm’s revised price target is “derived from 75 percent/25 percent weighted average of a base case P/E and DCF-based methodologies. For our P/E approach, we use a target multiple of 16.0x our C16 GAAP EPS estimate.”

Global Payments Inc traded at $75.98 late Friday, up 5.18 percent.