Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Purchased by Bank & Trust Co

Bank & Trust Co lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 90.7% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 452 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 215 shares during the quarter. Bank & Trust Co’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $68,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund grew its position in Blackstone by 105.4% in the 1st quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 13,405 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,874,000 after buying an additional 6,878 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 6.6% during the first quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 31,212 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,363,000 after acquiring an additional 1,943 shares during the period. Comprehensive Money Management Services LLC acquired a new stake in Blackstone in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,747,000. Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new position in Blackstone during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $273,000. Finally, Sandy Cove Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 22.1% in the 2nd quarter. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC now owns 12,042 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,801,000 after buying an additional 2,182 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total value of $8,829,594.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 737,248 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $128,015,742.72. This trade represents a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Ruth Porat bought 222 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $170.29 per share, with a total value of $37,804.38. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 38,753 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,599,248.37. This trade represents a 0.58% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders bought 1,189,806 shares of company stock worth $30,046,627 and sold 16,871,634 shares worth $135,328,376. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BX has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays raised their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $172.38.

Blackstone Stock Performance

NYSE:BX opened at $187.99 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $138.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.53, a P/E/G ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $172.71 and its two-hundred day moving average is $151.57. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.77 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were paid a dividend of $1.03 per share. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is presently 110.75%.

About Blackstone

Blackstone Inc is an alternative asset management firm specializing in real estate, private equity, hedge fund solutions, credit, secondary funds of funds, public debt and equity and multi-asset class strategies. The firm typically invests in early-stage companies. It also provide capital markets services.