Payments processing giant Fiserv faces another shareholder lawsuit, this time with investors alleging it misled them about the company’s potential for revenue growth.
A case filed in a Wisconsin federal court last week said the company's earnings forecasts were based on faulty data, deceiving investors and causing them to buy the company’s stock at “artificially inflated prices.”
The case focuses on Milwaukee-based Fiserv’s July revision of its organic revenue growth guidance. The previous guidance predicted between 10% and 12% revenue growth for 2025 compared with 2024, but the updated guidance projected just 10% revenue growth for the year.
The company said at the time that the revision was made because initiatives and projects were delayed, but stressed that the initial guidance was fundamentally sound.
However, Fiserv admitted in October that the previous guidance was based on “assumptions... which would have been objectively difficult to achieve even with the right investment and strong execution,” said the complaint filed Nov. 4. The document cites comments from CEO Michael Lyons during the company’s most recent earnings call on Oct. 29.
The revisions came after Fiserv made “a much broader and deeper full company analysis in Q3,” said Lyons who was named CEO in May.
The complaint names Fiserv, Lyons and former CFO Robert Hau as defendants, and seeks class action status.
Fiserv shuffled its C-suite in October after a disappointing earnings call, replacing Hau with Paul Todd, a former CFO at Global Payments.
“Fiserv disagrees with the claims and will vigorously defend itself in the lawsuit,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin by law firms Hagens Berman; Gainey McKenna & Egleston; and Scott and Scott.
Attorneys listed in the court documents did not respond to requests for comment. A Hagens Berman spokesperson declined to answer questions about the case.
The law firms involved in the case are soliciting clients who bought shares of the payment processor between July and October. The complaint filed Thursday lists a single plaintiff, Luxembourg-based investment fund Cypanga Sicav.
Fiserv stock plummeted on Oct. 29 following a disappointing earnings report. The shares have declined about 60% this year.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” the complaint said.
Shareholders filed a separate federal lawsuit in July, claiming the payment processor misled investors by failing to disclose it had forcibly migrated merchants to its Clover point-of-sale product in late 2023 through the first half of 2024. Company executives then made misleading statements about Clover's growth, resulting in a share price decline, according to that complaint in New York.
On Friday, two plaintiffs in the July complaint asked a federal judge to designate both of them as lead plaintiffs for the class action. A South Florida police pension fund and Ethenea Independent Investors SA, a Luxembourg-based investment fund, have been jousting for weeks in court filings about which is better suited to lead that lawsuit against Fiserv.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden of the Southern District of New York has not ruled on the lead plaintiff matter.
“Ethenea and the Pension Funds believe that the interests of the Class are best served by agreement and cooperation among the remaining movants in a leadership structure that resolves the pending motions and promotes efficient and expedient prosecution of the action,” lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday in a joint filing to the court.
