Cryder Capital Partners Is Betting Big on Payment Processing Companies

Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA)

– Shares Owned by Cryder Capital Partners LLP (as of March 31): 83,897

– Value of Holding (as of March 31): $7.93 million

Just like Visa Inc, Cryder Capital Partners LLP also increased its stake in Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) by 7% during the first quarter. Another fund that increased its stake in the company during the same period was Barry Dargan‘s Intermede Investment Partners, which boosted its holding by 41% to 446,054 shares. Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA)’s stock fell heavily at the beginning of 2016, but it has managed to recoup most of those losses since then and currently trades down 2.52% year-to-date. On April 28, the company reported its fiscal 2016 first quarter numbers, declaring EPS of $0.86 on revenue of $2.45 billion for the quarter versus analysts’ expectations of EPS of $0.85 on revenue of $2.38 billion. Even though the company managed to beat earnings and revenue estimate quarter, some analysts feel Mastercard Inc’s stock will struggle to break past the $100 mark as it is already trading at a premium to its fair value. On April 29, analysts at Wedbush reiterated their ‘Neutral’ rating on the stock, but upped their price target on it to $99 from $92.

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)

– Shares Owned by Cryder Capital Partners LLP (as of March 31): 10,990

– Value of Holding (as of March 31): $8.38 million

Though Cryder Capital Partners LLP increased its stake in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) by 13% during the first quarter, it also reduced its stake in the class C stock by 13% to 9,262 shares, valued at $6.9 million, as of March 31. Shares of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) have slumped recently after the company failed to repeat its stellar quarterly performance in the previous two quarters during its fiscal 2016 first quarter. While the Street had expected the company to report EPS of $7.96 on revenue of $20.37 billion, Alphabet declared EPS of $7.50 on revenue of $20.26 billion for the quarter. Owing largely to the recent decline, Alphabet’s stock is currently trading down by 7% year-to-date. An interesting detail that emerged from the company’s latest quarterly results was that the revenue from its Other Bets Segments, which includes Google Life Sciences, Google X, Nest and other moonshot projects, doubled year-over-year to $166 million. However, that segment still accounted for an operating loss of $802 million during the quarter.