May 9, 2007

NEWS: MasterCard Up 70%

MasterCard, the second biggest credit card franchise in the world, has only been a publicly traded entity since last May, but its first-year results seem to show that the move may have been extremely prudent. MasterCard not only transacted some $2 trillion in payments last year as its customers made some 16.1 billion purchases on their credit and debit cards, but, by its own reports, made $22 million from short-term investments. That latter figure is a huge surge from the $10 million upon which it stood a year earlier. Owing to favorable currency exchange rates and booming overseas usage, MasterCard was able to boast all-time record increases almost across the board in the first three months of the year. New York-based firm The Purchase reported earlier this week that profits for the first quarter climbed to $214.9 million ($1.57 per share), from $126.7 million (94 cents per share) in the twelve-month period. Overall annual revenue jumped a favorable 24 percent, to $915.1 million from $738.5 million.

Thompson Financial’s polls of analysts show that the results effortlessly leapfrogged Wall Street’s predictions for gains of a mere $1.15 per share on revenue of $840 million.



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