FAT CATS

[lady*b]

re: VISA as of yesterday.........not sure if anyone has put this on the boards here yet......
Visa Plans $10 Billion Public Offering

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- Visa Inc. is moving forward with an initial public stock offering that will likely be the largest in years in the U.S.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the San Francisco payments giant plans to sell shares in a deal that could be valued at $10 billion. While that number is viewed as a placeholder that could change as the event, expected early next year, gets closer, it would still make it the second-largest public offering by a U.S. company, behind AT&T Wireless Group's $10.62 billion IPO in 2000, according to research firm Dealogic.

Visa first announced plans to go public more than a year ago, but has been focused in recent months on a complicated restructuring that united its regional divisions under one company. At the time, Visa said it would sell a majority stake to the public. If that holds true, the offering could surpass $10 billion and approach last year's record IPO of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.

Since October 2006, Visa's direct competitor MasterCard Inc. has seen its stock more than double, giving it a market value of $25 billion. Visa is expected to have a larger market value once it goes public.

Friday, Visa said its underwriting team will be led by the securities units of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Visa is expected to use the IPO to help it form alliances and become less dependent on its bank owners. The move toward an IPO means Visa will be required to report more financial data than it has in the past.

The electronic-payments industry is rolling out products and services such as mobile payments through cellphones and checkout counters that read a fingerprint. Visa dominates the industry and has aggressively pursued new forms of payment, particularly in debit cards, which are linked directly to bank checking accounts.

In fiscal year 2006, Visa U.S.A. operating revenue grew to about $3 billion from $2.7 billion the prior year, driven mainly by increases in card services and data processing fees that came from a fast-growing market for payment volumes and transactions.

During 2006, Visa handled $3.2 trillion in 44 billion transactions, making it the largest player in the industry followed by MasterCard, American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services. Its net income for the three quarters ended June 30 was $771 million, up 76% from fiscal year 2006's $437 million.

http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/smw/index.cfm?story=20071112103106