Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Sells 497 Shares of Blackstone Inc. $BX

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 84,832 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 497 shares during the period. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $12,689,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of BX. 1248 Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 1st quarter valued at $25,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC bought a new position in Blackstone in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Blackstone in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Livelsberger Financial Advisory bought a new stake in Blackstone in the 2nd quarter valued at $30,000. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 11th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Citigroup restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Saturday, July 19th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their target price on Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $172.38.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of BX opened at $183.77 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $135.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.40, a PEG ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $171.20 and a 200 day moving average of $150.88. Blackstone Inc. has a 12 month low of $115.66 and a 12 month high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) 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%.The business’s revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.98 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current 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 given a dividend of $1.03 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.2%. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 14th. The stock was 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 approximately $128,015,742.72. This trade represents a 6.45% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO David Payne sold 9,400 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $169.97, for a total transaction of $1,597,718.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 54,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,261,325.36. This represents a 14.71% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have purchased 1,189,806 shares of company stock worth $30,046,627 and have sold 16,871,634 shares worth $135,328,376. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Profile

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.