Capital Investment Advisors LLC Increases Stock Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Capital Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.9% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 13,899 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 127 shares during the period. Capital Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $2,079,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 105.4% in the first quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 13,405 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,874,000 after acquiring an additional 6,878 shares during the last quarter. Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new position in Blackstone in the second quarter valued at $273,000. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 22.1% in the second quarter. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC now owns 12,042 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,801,000 after acquiring an additional 2,182 shares during the last quarter. Narwhal Capital Management lifted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 34.3% during the first quarter. Narwhal Capital Management now owns 64,614 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $9,032,000 after purchasing an additional 16,486 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 14.5% during the first quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. now owns 14,708 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,056,000 after purchasing an additional 1,863 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 113,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.69, for a total transaction of $19,852,970.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 695,757 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $122,237,547.33. This represents a 13.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Holdings I. L.P. Blackstone bought 1,189,532 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 18th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $25.22 per share, with a total value of $29,999,997.04. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider directly owned 4,178,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $105,388,604.62. The trade was a 39.79% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders purchased 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Barclays boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. JMP Securities boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their target price on Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $172.71.

Blackstone Stock Down 3.0%

Shares of Blackstone stock opened at $170.94 on Wednesday. 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 has a market cap of $126.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.95, a P/E/G ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $174.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $153.38.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.77 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.Blackstone’s quarterly revenue was up 32.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.