Visa made some headlines recently when it was reported that it owns a 10% stake in Square. Turns out, those reports were a bit premature.
“Visa, the world’s largest credit and debit card company, said on Friday it currently has about a 1 percent stake in mobile payments company Square Inc based on a 2011 investment.
Visa told Reuters its current holdings are just more than 4.19 million shares of Class B common stock.
The company has the option to convert up to 3.52 million of these shares into Class A stock, according to a disclosure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, which would give it at most a 9.99 percent stake in the share class.”
It’s not clear if Visa will choose to convert its shares into Class A stock and even if it did that may not translate into a 10% ownership stake if other stockholders convert their shares as well. Regardless, it will be fascinating to see how Visa proceeds.
Overview by Alex Johnson, Director, Credit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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