Shares of Worldpay Inc. WP, +8.20% are up more than 7% in morning trading Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected December-quarter results.
Worldpay posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.12 on revenue of $1.05 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been expecting $1.08 in adjusted EPS and $1.04 billion in revenue. The company delivered a forecast for fiscal 2019 that came in a bit below analysts’ consensus figures at its midpoint, but Jefferies analyst Michael Del Grosso called the forecast conservative and Barclays analyst Ramsey El-Assal said that the outlook seemed roughly in line with buy-side expectations. “Worldpay completed its F18 deleveraging goals ahead of schedule and began repurchasing shares in Q4, which we expect to continue in 2019,” El-Assal wrote. “These results, plus incremental bullishness around achieving F20 cost and revenue synergies are supporting today’s move up in shares.” Worldpay shares have gained 16% over the past three months, as the S&P 500 SPX, -0.08%has risen 4.8%.