Shift4 Payments Tops $100 on Friday; 3Q Earnings Due Tuesday

— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs

Shares of Shift4, a Lehigh County-based processor of credit-card payments, went over $100 on Friday.

The shares (NYSE:FOUR) hit a 52-week high of $102.38 before settling at $100.77 at closing. They rose to $102.24 in after-hours trading.

Upper Saucon Township-based Shift4 will report earnings Tuesday morning.

The company’s clients include hotels, restaurants, casinos, sports teams and other for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Through an acquisition, it has moved into customer-loyalty programs.

Shift4 also provides point-of-sale and e-commerce technology so clients can accept cryptocurrency payments.

Chief Executive Officer Jared Isaacman founded the company in 1999, when he was 16. Since then, he has become a multibillionaire and gone in to space on privately funded flights.

Isaacman and Shift4 President Taylor Lauber have said the company will seek growth, but profitable growth. Shift4 has expanded into new markets and into Europe, and has made multiple acquisitions.

Isaacman suggested in a conference call earlier that at some point, Shift4 may become an attractive acquisition candidate as its market share increases.

Shift4 processes hundreds of billions of dollars in payments annually.

As of Friday, the company’s market capitalization was $8.93 billion. Shift4 is one of three Lehigh Valley-based companies on the New York Stock Exchange. The other two are PPL Corp. (NYSE:PP_ and Air Products (NYSE:APD).

— Disclosure: I own shares of Shift4 as part of a buy-and-hold strategy.