Visa Profit Beats Wall Street View

Updated with more detail.

SAN FRANCISCO (TheStreet) - Visa (V) beat Wall Street's quarterly profit and revenue expectations on Wednesday and affirmed previous guidance for growth and margins for fiscal 2011.

The credit-card processor earned $884 million, or $1.23 per Class A common share for its first fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, up 16% from the year-ago period. Operating revenue came in at $2.24 billion, up from $1.96 billion a year ago. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.21 per Class A common share on revenue of $2.23 billion, on average, according to Thomson Reuters.

The company also affirmed expectations of 11% to 15% net revenue growth for fiscal 2011, with earnings per share on Class A common shares of more than 20% and an annual operating margin of about 60%.

"Visa's first quarter was a great start to our fiscal 2011 as evidenced by strong earnings fueled by continued growth in payments volume, cross border volume and processed transactions globally - our core business," Chairman and Joseph Saunders said in a statement.

Payments volume grew 15% to $897 billion during Visa's first fiscal quarter, on a constant dollar basis, from the year-ago period and cross-border volume climbed at the same rate.

The company also said it spent about $1.1 billion during the period repurchasing 15.3 million Class A common shares at an average price of $72.08 apiece. At Dec. 31, Visa's buyback plan $694 million in authorized funds remaining.

Visa, whose stock is split into three classes, also said its board had approved a plan to release 55 million remaining class C shares, making them become eligible for sale on Feb. 7.Those shares will automatically convert to class A common stock, but won't dilute class A shareholders on an as-converted basis.

Visa will issue a quarterly dividend equivalent to 15 cents per class A common share on March 1, to holders of record as of Feb. 11.

Visa shares had closed up 1.9% at $72.07 before the announcement, but they are currently down 1.69% to $70.87 in after-hours trading.

A conference call will begin at 5 p.m. Eastern time.

-- Written by Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York.

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