Mastercard earnings beat expectations, shares rise
NEW YORK (Reuters) - MasterCard Inc (MA.N), the world's second-largest card network, posted better-than- expected earnings on Monday, excluding items, boosted by a strong revenue growth outside the Unites States and currency fluctuations, sending its shares up almost 9 percent.
But Chief Executive Officer Robert Selander said MasterCard expected revenues to grow below the company's long-term target of 12 percent to 15 percent in 2009 amid a fast deterioration of the world's economy.
"We are in an economic crisis like I don't think we have seen in our lifetime," Martina Hund-Mejean, chief financial officer, said in an interview with Reuters.
Hund-Mejean said MasterCard felt a sharp deterioration of the world's economy in October with a sudden slowdown of cross- border transactions and forecast the economic downturn would be widespread, from the United States and Europe to emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and Mexico.
The slower economic growth together with a recent appreciation of the U.S. dollar -- which lowers revenues from abroad -- is expected to hammer MasterCard business next year.
"We are planning on a more prolonged downturn rather than something turning around in the next three to six months ... My main concern is how long this is going to last," Hund-Mejean said.
She added the company forecast operating expenses would remain flat in 2009, as MasterCard is reducing spending in contractors, suppliers, trips and cutting frozen jobs.
"We have open jobs that we basically cut. In addition to that, we're evaluation where we can reallocate some dollars that we're spending," Hund-Mejean said.
The Purchase, New York-based company reported earnings excluding charges of $322 million, or $2.47 a share. Analysts on average expected earnings of $2.22 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
MasterCard's net loss was $194 million, or $1.49 per share, in the third-quarter following an after-tax charge of $515.5 million related to a settlement of antitrust litigation with Discover Financial Services (DFS.N).
The result compared with earnings of $314 million, or $2.32 a share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue increased 24 percent to $1.34 billion, boosted by double-digit growths in Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America. In the United States, where MasterCard generates around 40 percent of its transactions, revenue grew only 4.7 percent.
Currency fluctuations -- driven by movements of the euro and the Brazilian real relative to the U.S. dollar -- contributed 3.5 percentage points of the increase in net revenue for the quarter.
In addition, transactions processed increased 13 percent to 5.4 billion, while the gross dollar volume transactions rose 12.3 percent to $662 billion.
Mastercard's stock was up 8.6 percent at $156.32 in extended trading on Monday. The shares of the company have lost around one-third of their value this year.
(Reporting by Juan Lagorio, editing by Bernard Orr and Andre Grenon)
