# Global Payments: 6x guided earnings, but the cash is thinner than it looks GPN, NYSE. Published October 6, 2026. Price as of the October 5, 2026 regular session close. ## Verdict: HOLD at $82.18 Watchlist for new money. The shares trade about 18% below my Base value of $99.84, which is real but short of the 40% margin of safety this setup needs. Adjusted free cash flow is well above reported free cash flow, a $2.3 billion tax balance from the Issuer Solutions sale sits outside net debt, and the buy zone is $59.90 or below. - Bear value: $59.67 - Base value: $99.84 - Bull value: $137.90 - Upside to base value: +21.5% - Maximum buy price: $59.90 - Required margin of safety: 40% - Price to 2026 adjusted EPS guidance ($13.70 midpoint): 6.0x - Net financial debt: $17.0 billion, about 2.9x run-rate EBITDA - Free cash flow per share in my Base after one-time cash costs: $11.50 (adjusted: $12.50) - Business quality: 55/100 - Valuation score: 48/100 - Confidence: 13/25, grade C At 6 times this year's guided adjusted earnings, Global Payments looks like one of the cheapest large payment companies in the market. The catch is in the word adjusted. In the first half of 2026 the company reported a GAAP cash flow shortfall of $123 million after capital spending, while its adjusted free cash flow was $1.23 billion. The gap is integration, separation and transformation spending, and it is the whole question in this analysis. At the October 5, 2026 close of $82.18 the shares trade 17.7% below my triangulated Base value of $99.84, an upside of 21.5%. The Bear value of $59.67 is 27.4% below the price and the Bull value of $137.90 is 67.8% above it. The required margin of safety (MOS) is 40%, which puts the maximum buy price at $59.90. The shares would have to fall about 27% to get there. The stock rose 4.85% on October 5, and I found no company news behind the move. Route: SF-01 Standard Value, subtype merchant acquiring and payment technology. Economic classification: Standard, at 5/12 on the economic classification, one point from Quality Growth. Primary method: a multiple of normalized free cash flow per share. Secondary method: EV to EBITDA with a full bridge to equity. Values are present fair value estimates, not 12 month price targets. On January 9, 2026 the company closed the Worldpay acquisition and sold Issuer Solutions, so historical revenue, cash flow, leverage and share count describe a different company. ## What Global Payments is Global Payments helps businesses accept card and digital payments. Since the Worldpay deal it reports three segments: SMB (small and midsize merchants, $1.51 billion of adjusted net revenue in the second quarter), Enterprise ($838 million, up from $148 million a year earlier because Worldpay is now included) and Platforms (software partners that embed payments, $628 million, normalized growth of 7%). Its Genius point of sale product is the main growth bet in SMB. It is a company whose fee income follows its customers' sales volume, so travel disruption in the Middle East and softer tax payment volumes already cost it about 100 basis points of growth in the second quarter. The January transaction swapped one business for another. Global Payments paid about $6.0 billion in cash and 42.8 million new shares for Worldpay, and received about $7.5 billion in cash plus FIS's stake in Worldpay for Issuer Solutions. The 10-Q shows $1.7 billion of tax expense in discontinued operations in the first half, mostly because goodwill sold with Issuer Solutions was not deductible. That tax is not an accounting footnote. Income taxes payable rose from $118 million at the end of 2025 to $2,450 million at June 30, 2026. ## The latest quarter | Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30, 2026) | Result | | --- | --- | | Revenue | GAAP $3,320.8 million. Adjusted net revenue $3,159.1 million, up 4% on a normalized basis (including Worldpay before the deal, excluding Issuer Solutions) | | Adjusted operating income | $1,325.5 million, margin 42.0%, up 70 basis points normalized | | Earnings per share | Adjusted $3.46, up 11.7%. GAAP $0.05, with $0.43 from continuing operations | | Adjusted free cash flow | $687 million, about 75% of adjusted net income. First half $1,231 million, about 71% | | First half GAAP cash flow | Operating cash flow $373.8 million, capital spending $497.0 million, so minus $123.2 million | | Capital returned | First half buybacks $1,099.9 million and dividends $134.7 million | | Balance sheet (June 30) | Cash $5,409.0 million, current debt $925.0 million, long-term debt $21,493.3 million | | Diluted shares | 270.1 million in the quarter, against 243.6 million a year earlier | | 2026 outlook (cut on August 5) | Adjusted EPS $13.60 to $13.80 (was $13.80 to $14.00), normalized constant currency net revenue growth 4% to 5% (was about 5%), margin expansion about 150 basis points, adjusted free cash flow above 90% of adjusted net income | The guidance cut was caused by the Middle East conflict and its effect on the travel portfolio. Management expects second half revenue growth of about 4.5% with about 200 basis points of margin expansion, helped by Worldpay cost savings. Two figures from this release matter more than the headline beat. Adjusted EPS excludes $757.6 million of acquired intangible amortization in the quarter (about $2.80 a share, non-cash) and $222.8 million of integration, transformation and termination charges in selling, general and administrative expense (about $0.82 a share before tax). ## Why adjusted free cash flow is not the number to pay for The economic metric that fits this company is owner free cash flow per share: cash from operations, less capital spending, after the integration and separation costs the business needs to pay to get to its target state, divided by diluted shares. Management's adjusted free cash flow is a different number. It adds back one-time costs, and the company has excluded such costs every year: in 2025 the excluded items for integration, transformation, termination, modernization and facilities came to $2.61 a share. My starting point is $12.50 a share of normalized adjusted free cash flow, which is 91% of the $13.70 EPS midpoint and consistent with the guide of more than 90% conversion. That is about $3.3 billion for 2026 on 264.6 million shares. To get the full year, the second half has to deliver about $2.07 billion, or roughly 108% of second half adjusted net income. Management says conversion is seasonally higher in the second half and was above 100% last year. It is plausible but not yet earned. I then take two deductions that the adjusted figure leaves out. The first is a haircut for one-time cash costs that keep recurring: **$2.00 a share in the Bear, $1.00 in the Base and $0.50 in the Bull**. These are my estimates. The first half added back about $622 million of pre-tax integration, transformation, termination and related charges (about $2.29 a share), management expects about $100 million more of integration cost in the second half, and it is pulling separation work from FIS forward. A Base haircut of $1.00 assumes the run-rate falls sharply from here. The second is a tax item, below. ## Balance sheet, taxes and shares Gross debt is **$22,418 million** and cash is $5,409 million, so net financial debt is **$17,009 million**. That is about 2.9 times my run-rate EBITDA estimate of $5.8 billion (3.9 times gross). I leave out settlement lines of credit and settlement obligations, which are matched by settlement assets and not corporate borrowing, and I leave out operating leases, because rent is already inside EBITDA. Noncontrolling interests of **$859 million** (about $3.25 a share) belong in the bridge from enterprise value to equity, and I include them in the secondary method. The tax balance is the item most easily missed. Income taxes payable rose $2,334 million in the first half, a cash flow tailwind that is a bill, not a gain. Management's own comment is that integration costs were front-loaded in 2026 partly to offset the tax on the Issuer sale, so some of it will be deducted. The cash tax actually due, and when, is not stated in the filings I could verify (UNAVAILABLE). I deduct **half of the increase, $1,167 million or $4.41 a share**, in every scenario, and test 0% and 100% in the robustness table. The share count rose from 236.7 million at the end of 2025 to 265.9 million at June 30 and 264.6 million now, because of the 42.8 million Worldpay shares, partly offset by buybacks of $1.1 billion in the half. Dilution is transaction driven, not a pattern of stock compensation: stock-based compensation was $57 million in the first half, against $80 million a year earlier. I use 264.62 million shares for all per share values. At today's price the planned $2 billion annual capital return would retire about 9% of the shares each year, which I do not put in the Base. The dividend is $0.25 a quarter, about $1.00 a year, a yield of 1.2%. ## Primary valuation: a multiple of free cash flow per share The primary method multiplies free cash flow per share, after the haircut, by a multiple, and deducts the tax item. For the Base: ($12.50 less $1.00) times 9.0, less $4.41, gives **$99.09**. The 9.0x multiple is the default for the SF-01 tier called cyclical or risky (8x to 10x range), not a derived value. It fits a company with gross debt near 3.9 times EBITDA, a weak record of free cash flow growth in its new form and a moat that is real but under pricing pressure. The grid tests it. ### Sensitivity: value per share after the $4.41 tax item | Free cash flow per share \ multiple | 7x | 9x | 11x | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | $9.50 (Bear level) | $62.1 | $81.1 | $100.1 | | $11.50 (Base) | $76.1 | $99.1 | $122.1 | | $13.00 (Bull level) | $86.6 | $112.6 | $138.6 | The price of $82.18 sits between the 7x and 9x cells on Base cash flow. It is matched by the Base multiple only if free cash flow per share comes in about 16% below my Base. ## Secondary valuation: EV to EBITDA The secondary method applies a multiple to EBITDA that reflects the post-deal company and works down to equity: enterprise value, less net debt of $17.0 billion, less noncontrolling interests of $0.86 billion, less the same $4.41 a share tax item, divided by 264.62 million shares. For the Base, EBITDA of $6.1 billion at 7.5x gives **$100.96**. The $6.1 billion figure is a forward number that includes part of the synergies, not a current one: second quarter adjusted operating income annualizes to $5.3 billion, and adjusted EBITDA is about $5.7 to $5.8 billion on my estimate. It is not independent of the primary method, since both rely on the same earnings power and on multiples I chose. | Scenario | EBITDA | EV/EBITDA | Value per share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Bear | $5.5 billion | 6.5x | $63.17 | | Base | $6.1 billion | 7.5x | $100.96 | | Bull | $6.5 billion | 8.5x | $136.86 | ## Market multiples and growth diagnostics At $82.18 the market value is $21.7 billion and enterprise value about $39.6 billion, or 6.8 times my EBITDA estimate of $5.8 billion. The price is 6.0 times the $13.70 EPS guidance midpoint and 6.6 times $12.50 adjusted free cash flow per share (a free cash flow yield of 15.2% on the adjusted figure and 14.0% on the after-haircut $11.50). Historical multiples were far higher, but they belong to the old Global Payments, with Issuer Solutions, a different balance sheet and a different share count, so I give them no weight. A peer table is not available from free sources. The growth valuation cross-check (SM-19) is a diagnostic only. Guided adjusted EPS growth is 11% to 13% in constant currency, helped by synergies and buybacks, so a PEG ratio is not meaningful here. Growth durability: normalizing and acquisition affected. Cyclical distortion: medium, because volumes follow consumer spending and travel. Flags: accounting basis mismatch (GAAP EPS of $0.05 against adjusted $3.46 in the quarter). SM-19 does not set fair value. The free cash flow growth quality check (SM-20) cannot use a conventional multi-year growth rate, because history spans two different companies. My 2026 starting point is about $3.3 billion. A 2028 figure of $4.1 billion to $4.3 billion would be a compound growth rate of 11.5% to 14.2% over two years. Management's own markers are $4 billion of adjusted free cash flow for 2027 and $5 billion for 2028 (company targets, not used in my Base). Free cash flow per share would grow faster than total cash flow if buybacks continue, but I do not model that. Distortion flags: acquisition high, working capital and tax timing high, low base not applicable. Estimate reliability: medium. Classification: acquisition affected, structural with execution risk. I do not publish a numeric SM-20 score. It does not set fair value, MOS or the verdict. ## Valuation triangulation | Method | Base value | Weight | | --- | --- | --- | | Primary: 9.0x free cash flow per share, after haircut and tax item | $99.09 | 60% | | Secondary: 7.5x EBITDA, after net debt, noncontrolling interests and tax item | $100.96 | 40% | | Triangulated Base | $99.84 | 100% | The two methods differ by 1.9%, well under the 20% warning level. That agreement is weak evidence. Both rest on multiples I chose and on the same normalized earnings. The Base is the weighted result, not rounded. ## What is the market already pricing in? Add the $4.41 a share tax item to the price and you get $86.59 to be covered by free cash flow. On my Base cash flow of $11.50 that is a multiple of **7.5x**, against 9.0x in the Base. Held at 9.0x, the market is pricing free cash flow per share of about **$9.62**, which is 16% below my Base and roughly where my Bear sits ($9.50). That is a demanding outlook but not a disaster. The price assumes that the synergy program is only partly captured, that growth stays near 4%, that integration costs do not fade as management says, or that the tax bill is large. It does not need the plan to work in full. It needs it to work more than a little. ## Bear, base and bull scenarios | | Bear | Base | Bull | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Main assumptions | Growth 1% to 2%, slower synergies, integration costs persist | Growth 4% to 5%, material synergy capture, costs fade | Growth 6%+, strong synergies, margin gains | | Adjusted free cash flow per share | $11.50 | $12.50 | $13.50 | | Less one-time cash costs | $2.00 | $1.00 | $0.50 | | Primary multiple | 6.5x | 9.0x | 11.0x | | Primary value (after $4.41 tax item) | $57.34 | $99.09 | $138.59 | | EBITDA / EV multiple | $5.5 billion / 6.5x | $6.1 billion / 7.5x | $6.5 billion / 8.5x | | Secondary value | $63.17 | $100.96 | $136.86 | | Value per share (60/40) | $59.67 | $99.84 | $137.90 | | Versus $82.18 | -27.4% | +21.5% | +67.8% | I assign no probabilities. In every scenario the multiple does the work as much as the cash flow: the Bear to Bull range is mostly a range of multiples (6.5x to 11x) applied to a cash flow range of $9.50 to $13.00. The range is wide, which is why Confidence is only C. ## How the buy price is set A Confidence C score carries a base MOS of 35%. I add 5 points for financial leverage (gross debt near 3.9 times EBITDA) and 5 points for transaction and accounting opacity (large gaps between adjusted and GAAP results and an unquantified tax payment), and I subtract 5 points for the recurring, contract-like nature of payment fees. The required MOS is **40%**. Applied to the $99.84 Base, the **maximum buy price is $59.90**. At $82.18 the stock trades above its buy zone. ## Dividend and capital return The dividend of about $1.00 a share yields 1.2% and does not matter for the thesis. Capital return does: management plans to return more than $2 billion in 2026 and about $7.5 billion over 2025 to 2027, and has already returned $1.2 billion this year. Buybacks at 6 times earnings are attractive arithmetic, but they compete with debt reduction toward the 3x net leverage target and with integration spending. ## Reasons to own GPN - **Low price for guided earnings.** 6.0x the EPS midpoint, with guided EPS growth of 11% to 13%. - **Scale and distribution.** Worldpay adds enterprise and ecommerce capability, and Genius new locations grew more than 50% in the second quarter. - **Announced cost savings.** Company targets of $600 million of Worldpay cost synergies by the end of 2028 and more than $650 million from its transformation program by the first half of 2027. - **Buybacks at a low multiple.** They can add meaningfully to per share value if cash flow holds. - **Recurring fee income.** Embedded merchant relationships and switching friction. ## What could go wrong? - **Thesis breaker: Worldpay integration or synergy shortfall.** With net debt of $17.0 billion, a miss shows up quickly in cash flow per share. - **Cash conversion.** The company needs about 108% conversion in the second half to meet its own guide, after a first half of 71%. - **Taxes.** A $2.3 billion payable from the Issuer sale could draw down cash or debt capacity. - **Competition and pricing.** Merchant acquiring is pricing sensitive, and small businesses are moving toward platform based payments. - **Macro and travel.** The Middle East conflict already cost about 1 point of growth, and guidance was cut once. - **Adjusted versus GAAP.** Adjusted EPS excludes about $2.80 a share a quarter of acquired amortization and a lot of integration cost. ## Management execution Management has delivered adjusted EPS growth of 10% to 12% in each of the first two quarters, closed the Worldpay deal ahead of schedule, returned capital and quantified synergies. The offsets are a guidance cut in the second quarter as a combined company, free cash flow that depends on a second half step up, and heavy reliance on adjusted measures. **Assessment: 12/20, acceptable but not yet proven. The next test is the third quarter report, expected on November 3, 2026 (an estimate).** ## Stock Analyza scorecard | Economic classification | Score | | --- | --- | | Normalized return on invested capital | 0/2 | | Revenue growth, multi-year | 0/2 | | Free cash flow per share trajectory | 1/2 | | Balance sheet | 0/1 | | Unit economics | 1/1 | | Recurring and repeat economics | 2/2 | | Reinvestment runway | 1/2 | | Total: Standard | 5/12 | Return on capital is 0/2 because GAAP returns are low (a third-party return on equity figure is about 2%, on a book value close to the market value) and the company has just paid up for scale. The first draft scored runway 2/2 without evidence of high returns on new capital. Business quality is **55/100**: moat and pricing power 15/20, return versus cost of capital 7/20, balance sheet 6/15, earnings and cash quality 8/15, growth and runway 9/15, management and capital allocation 7/10, dilution and governance 3/5. The valuation score is **48/100**: discount to Base 18/40 (a 17.7% discount against a 40% requirement), protection against the Bear case 6/20, agreement between methods 11/15, historical valuation 4/10, market expectations 7/10, data and model quality 2/5. ## Confidence score | Confidence | Score | | --- | --- | | Data quality / source provenance | 3/5 | | Predictability | 3/5 | | Valuation robustness | 3/5 | | Accounting transparency | 2/5 | | Scenario dispersion | 2/5 | | Total | 13/25, grade C | Reporting is timely and the filings are available. The grade is held down by a company with less than a year of combined history, a normalized cash flow that is my estimate, an unquantified tax payment, a gap between adjusted and GAAP earnings, and a Bear to Bull range of $60 to $138. ## What I would watch from here ### Green - Normalized revenue growth of 5% or more - Adjusted EPS guide met or raised - Operating margin expansion at or above 150 basis points for the year - Second half adjusted free cash flow conversion of 100% or more - Net debt to EBITDA at or below 3.0x and falling - Taxes payable from the Issuer sale paid down or offset - Share count falling - Worldpay synergies on or ahead of plan ### Yellow - Normalized revenue growth of 2% to 5% - Adjusted EPS guide met but at the low end - Margin expansion of 50 to 150 basis points - Second half conversion of 80% to 100% - Net debt to EBITDA of 3.0x to 3.5x - Share count flat - Synergy delays ### Red - Normalized revenue growth below 2% - Material cut to the adjusted EPS guide - Flat or falling margins - Second half conversion below 80% - Net debt to EBITDA above 3.5x or rising - Persistent dilution - Major synergy shortfall Today three readings are yellow: normalized revenue growth (4% in the second quarter), the adjusted EPS guide (cut on August 5) and margin expansion (70 basis points in the second quarter against about 150 for the year, which is back-end loaded). Net debt to EBITDA is at the green and yellow border (2.9x, or 3.1x if half the tax balance is added). Share count is green (265.9 million at June 30, 264.6 million now). Second half conversion and the tax balance are open. The next review point is the third quarter report, expected on November 3, 2026 (an estimate). ## The three most important thesis breakers 1. Worldpay integration fails or synergies fall well short of plan. 2. Cash conversion stays below plan and net debt to EBITDA does not fall toward 3x. 3. Organic growth stays below 2% while margins stop expanding. ## Adversarial review I recomputed the primary and secondary values, the sensitivity grid, the triangulation, the MOS, the market multiples and the share and debt bridges, and checked the inputs against the second quarter release and the 10-Q for June 30, 2026. Reported figures reconcile. The corrections came in the scenario values, the equity bridge, the cash flow definition and the scores. | Item | First draft | Corrected | | --- | --- | --- | | Bear / Base / Bull | $80 / $112 / $140, which did not match the draft's own method tables ($75, $108 to $113, $140 to $149) | $59.67 / $99.84 / $137.90, built from both methods | | Base rounding | $111.0 weighted, shown as $112 | Weighted result, no rounding up | | Equity bridge | Net debt only | Net debt $17.0 billion plus noncontrolling interests $0.86 billion | | Free cash flow definition | $12.50 adjusted free cash flow described as owner free cash flow | Same $12.50 as a starting point, then haircuts of $2.00, $1.00 and $0.50 for recurring one-time cash costs (my estimates) | | Tax payable from the Issuer sale | Not mentioned | 50% of the $2.3 billion increase deducted ($4.41 a share), 0% and 100% tested | | Guidance | "Broadly on plan" | EPS guide cut from $13.80 to $14.00 to $13.60 to $13.80 on August 5 | | Buy zone | Maximum buy $67, "accumulation zone" $67 to $75 | Maximum buy $59.90, no zone above it | | Required margin of safety | 40% | 40%, same build | | Business quality | 67/100 with governance and dilution 5/5 and return versus cost of capital 10/20 | 55/100: governance and dilution 3/5, returns 7/20 | | Valuation score | 84/100 with no breakdown | 48/100 from six components | | Economic classification | 6/12 | 5/12, Standard | | Confidence | 17/25, grade C | 13/25, grade C | | Management credibility | 13/20 | 12/20 | | Verdict | Buy, watchlist for stronger margin of safety | Hold, watchlist for new money | None of these corrections raises the value or the scores, and I found no correction that moves up. The share price also rose 4.85% on October 5. Together, the corrections and the higher price cut the upside from the first draft's 42.9% (at $78.38) to 21.5%. The strongest counter-thesis, for the bulls: adjusted earnings of $13.70 on a 6 times multiple describe a company that the market is simply mispricing, because integration costs fall away, the tax is largely offset by deductions, and $4 billion to $5 billion of adjusted free cash flow arrives by 2027 and 2028. The generous case below puts a value of about $110 on that. The response is that this requires the one-time costs to disappear, which they have not done in any year so far. | Robustness check | Value per share | | --- | --- | | Central Base | $99.84 | | Generous: no haircut, tax item 0% | $109.6, +33.4% | | Generous: no haircut, tax item 50% | $105.2, +28.0% | | Conservative: Base haircut $1.50, tax item 100%, EBITDA $5.8 billion | $89.3, +8.7% | | Base with EBITDA at run-rate $5.8 billion | $96.4 | | Base without noncontrolling interests in the bridge | $101.1 | | Primary at 7x / 11x (Base cash flow) | $76.1 / $122.1 | | Secondary at 6.5x / 8.5x (Base EBITDA) | $77.9 / $124.0 | | Base free cash flow per share down 20% / down 40% | $78.4 / $57.7 | The verdict depends on the tax item and the haircut. In the generous case the framework gives Deep Undervalued, which maps to a Buy after the one-grade reduction for acquisition driven character change. In the central and conservative cases it is Hold. If the third quarter shows that most of the tax is already paid or offset, my Base moves toward $105 to $110, and the verdict could change. Audit flags: the $4.41 tax item, the haircut, the $5.8 billion run-rate EBITDA and the $6.1 billion forward EBITDA are my estimates. The 9.0x, 7.5x and the scenario multiples are assumptions, not derived values. The synergy targets ($600 million, $650 million, $200 million) are company targets and were not independently verified. Consensus estimates and a peer table were not available. The publication gate status is PASS WITH WARNING because the combined company has less than a year of history and the tax payment timing is unknown. ## Final verdict: hold at $82.18, watchlist for new money Global Payments is a scaled payments company priced at 6 times guided adjusted earnings. That is cheap, and my Base says the shares are worth about 21% more than the price. But the earnings are adjusted, reported cash flow after capital spending was negative in the first half, and a $2.3 billion tax balance sits outside net debt. With a margin of safety of 40% the buy price is $59.90, well under the market. **Verdict: HOLD at $82.18. Triangulated Base value $99.84, upside 21.5%, Confidence C (13/25). Required margin of safety 40%, maximum buy price $59.90.** Valuation alone maps to Undervalued, which would be a Buy, but the Worldpay deal is a negative change in investment character (more debt, more shares, integration risk), so the verdict is reduced by one grade. The case changes if the third quarter shows second half cash conversion near 100%, or the cash tax is shown to be smaller than my assumption, or the price falls toward the buy zone with the plan on track. The main thesis breaker is a failure to turn Worldpay scale and announced synergies into durable per share free cash flow while the company reduces debt. ## More analyses on Patreon This analysis is free. Premium members get every in-depth analysis, the full archive and a vote on which stocks get analyzed next: https://www.patreon.com/stockanalyza ## Sources Primary sources include Global Payments' [second quarter 2026 release of August 5, 2026](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001123360/000112336026000082/exhibit99120260630.htm), the [Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001123360/000112336026000084/gpn-20260630.htm), the first quarter release and earnings presentation, and the second quarter earnings call. The October 5, 2026 close comes from [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GPN/). The reference market price is the October 5, 2026 regular session close of $82.18, up 4.85% on the day. A broker app showed $78.30, which is the October 5 opening level and not the close. Balance sheet items are as of June 30, 2026 and the 264.62 million share count is from StockAnalysis. The haircuts, the tax item, run-rate EBITDA, multiples and scenario inputs are analytical estimates, not company guidance. **Disclaimer.** This analysis is provided solely for research and educational purposes. It is not personalized investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Global Payments carries high leverage, integration risk from the Worldpay acquisition and exposure to consumer spending, and its shares can fall sharply. Investors can lose part or all of their invested capital. Framework: SF-01 Standard Value, merchant acquiring and payment technology. Economic class: Standard. Engine: normalized free cash flow per share with an EV to EBITDA cross-check. Confidence: C/13. Data status and adversarial gate: PASS\_WITH\_WARNING. Version: Master v3.3.