WorldPay Inc., the company that now contains the old Durango startup payment-processing firm Mercury Payment Systems, gave an upbeat financial outlook for the rest of the year on Thursday when it announced first-quarter earnings.
WorldPay, the Cincinnati-based firm which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WP, formed when Vantiv Inc. of Cincinnati acquired London-based WorldPay for $11.9 billion in January.
The merged company retained its Cincinnati headquarters but changed its name to WorldPay.
Vantiv had earlier acquired Mercury Payment Systems in May 2014, shortly after Mercury had opened its new headquarters near the Durango Mall.
WorldPay’s first-quarter profits adjusted for non-recurring items such as acquisition and integration costs rose 19 percent to 81 cents per share.
That topped analysts’ consensus estimates of 77 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenue jumped 81 percent to $851 million. That also beat analysts’ estimates of $842 million in revenue.
The results prompted WorldPay to raise its 2018 outlook for adjusted earnings by 5 cents per share. It now expects full-year adjusted profits to come in between $3.71 and $3.81 per share.
That’s up from $3.37 per share last year. It also hiked its full-year revenue estimates by $10 million. It now expects 2018 revenue to finish between $3.81 billion and $3.9 billion, up from $2.1 billion last year before the merger took effect.
Despite the results, WorldPay’s stock fell $2.75, or 3.25 percent, to $81.74 in Thursday’s trading.
The company said it has generated $10 million in cost savings from the merger during the first quarter.
No layoffs have been announced at the Durango office.
parmijo@durangoherald.com
