Global Payments Inc. (GPN) shares jumped nearly 13% Wednesday after the payment processing giant delivered a strong earnings beat and announced plans to return billions to shareholders through an aggressive buyback program.

The Numbers That Matter

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.18 for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, up 12% from a year ago and edging past the analyst consensus of $3.16. Not a huge beat, but solid execution nonetheless.

Revenue came in at $2.320 billion, which sounds impressive until you realize Wall Street was expecting $2.325 billion. It's the kind of miss that barely qualifies as a miss, but technically counts. Still, when you look at adjusted net revenues on a constant-currency basis and exclude dispositions, the company posted 6% growth, which tells a more encouraging story about the underlying business.

The real standout was profitability. Adjusted operating margin expanded 80 basis points year over year to reach 44.7% in the quarter. That's the kind of margin expansion investors love to see, especially in a business going through major transitions.

Big Changes Under the Hood

Global Payments wrapped up two major transactions during the period. The company closed its acquisition of Worldpay while divesting its Issuer Solutions business, effectively transforming itself into what management calls a "leading pure-play merchant solutions provider." Starting in Q2 2025, Issuer Solutions was reclassified as discontinued operations following the divestiture announcement.

Returning Cash to Shareholders

Here's where things get interesting for shareholders. The Board of Directors authorized $2.5 billion in share repurchases, and the company is wasting no time getting started with a $550 million accelerated share repurchase plan.

All told, Global Payments expects to return more than $2 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in 2026 alone, including that $550 million accelerated repurchase announced Wednesday. The Board also approved a quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share, payable March 30, 2026, to shareholders of record as of March 9, 2026.

What Management Is Saying

CEO Cameron Bready highlighted the company's Genius platform, which launched in the second quarter of 2025. "A cornerstone of our transformation was the launch of our Genius platform in the second quarter of 2025. We are pleased with the pace of the rollout and encouraged by the strong commercial traction we are seeing from our ongoing investments in our go-to-market capabilities," Bready said.

He added that with major transactions now complete, the company remains committed to returning $7.5 billion of capital to shareholders through the end of 2027, consistent with targets established at the 2024 investor conference.

Looking Ahead

For 2026, Global Payments guided adjusted EPS in the range of $13.80 to $14.00, comfortably ahead of the $13.64 analyst consensus. That's the kind of forward guidance that gets investors excited. Revenue guidance came in at approximately $9.781 billion, slightly below Wall Street's $9.870 billion estimate, but the company is projecting adjusted net revenue growth of around 5% in constant currencies excluding dispositions.

Management also expects adjusted operating margin expansion of approximately 150 basis points for the year, which would represent meaningful profitability improvement.

GPN shares were trading up 12.94% at $78.80 Wednesday following the announcement.