2023-03-30 09:06:23 ET
Barclays analyst Ramsey El-Assal reinstated shares of Global Payments ( NYSE: GPN ) at Overweight as its beaten-down valuation is "'dislocated' given the company's healthy growth/earnings profile," he wrote in a note Thursday.
GPN slid 9% from a month ago and 26.4% year-over-year, currently trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 10.01x.
El-Assal attributed the recent slump in GPN to investors' worries about the company's exposure to small businesses "in the context of potential macro deterioration, as well as some residual concern regarding the strength of GPN’s competitive moat."
But the analyst dismissed those concerns as "we believe GPN has made the right investments over time to ensure higher-growth tech-enabled channels drive healthy organic performance in Merchant. And on macro, we actually believe the company processes more non-discretionary volumes than investors appreciate."
Shares of the paytech firm edged higher by 0.6% in premarket trading.
El-Assal's Overweight rating diverges from the Quant system rating of Hold and aligns with the average Wall Street analyst rating of Buy.
Earlier this week, (March 28) SA contributor viewed GPN as a Hold on expectations that the company "has the potential to scale profitably." The stock made it to Bernstein's top 12 stock picks list .
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Global Payments reinstated at Overweight at Barclays as stock attractively priced