Activist investor Daniel Loeb purchased a stake in financial services provider PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL, Financial), he disclosed Monday, which puts him in a swarm of prominent investors who found the stock attractive this year.
Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) of Fisher Investments has reported that he increased his PayPal holding by 4.58% to 581,461 shares in the second quarter. Spiros Segalas (Trades, Portfolio), founder of Jennison Associates, also boosted his position by 2.07% to 6,206,122 shares, equivalent to 0.52% of the companyâs shares outstanding, on April 30.
Few investors have reported their second quarter portfolios as the deadline is 45 days after quarter-end. But the stock was popular in the first three months of the year as well. Names adding it to their portfolios included George Soros (Trades, Portfolio), who purchased 85,800 shares, and Greenlightâs David Einhorn (Trades, Portfolio), who started a stake of 67,000 shares.
The stock has enjoyed an impressive run up since its debut as a standalone company in July 25, advancing 143% including a 1.78% pop Monday on news of Loebâs position. Shares traded around $89.03 in the afternoon.
Loeb is looking for expectations-beating earnings per share growth to deliver a 50% increase in its share price to $125.
Along with the all-time high stock price have come loftier ratios. PayPal trades with a price-sales ratio near a three-year high at 7.74 and price-earnings ratio of 56.36. Its price-book ratio is 7.2.
Loeb believes the online payments company warrants the pricier multiples as it transforms from a âpure-play âcheckout buttonâ to a broader commerce solutions platform,â with influence that rivals Netflix (NFLX, Financial) and Amazon (AMZN, Financial), he said in his shareholder letter released Monday.
âPayPal is covered primarily by financial services analysts and currently trades at 37x 2018 and 31x 2019 âstreetâ estimates which makes it appear expensive to certain investors,â he said. âHowever, we believe that PayPal is as much a fastâgrowing internet company as a consumer financial services company and that a premium multiple is warranted â particularly given the companyâs sizable net cash position.â
The cash position Loeb referenced stood at $2.88 billion at the end of March, with zero long-term debt. In addition to the bulwark balance sheet, PayPal offers Loeb potential growth at lower multiples than the internet companies he cited. Netflixâs price-earnings ratio is a stratospheric 165.67 and Amazon tops it at 226.38.
PayPalâs revenue has already increased each year since 2012, but Loeb expects three drivers for that to continue, starting with its monetization of Venmo, an app that enables electronic payments among people. Improvements such as a button that allows users to pay for commercial items with Venmo and a Venmo-branded credit card will help propel Venmoâs revenue contribution to $1 billion, Loeb wrote in his letter.
Adding to growth will be dynamic rather than one-size-fits-all billing to its merchant contracts and the $2 billion acquisition of iZettle, an offline, in-store payments system in Europe and Latin America, Loeb believes. iZettle reported $165 million in expected revenue in 2018 and revenue growth CAGR of 60% from 2015 to 2017.
Loebâs hedge fund third point stumbled in the first half of the year, returning 0.8% versus a 2.6% gain in the S&P 500. Weighing on returns were declines in some of his biggest holdings, including NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI, Financial) and Nestle (XSWX:NESN, Financial).
