Global Retirement Partners LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Global Retirement Partners LLC decreased its position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 11.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 40,603 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 5,059 shares during the quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $6,259,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.9% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 70,827,437 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $12,100,868,000 after buying an additional 1,335,060 shares during the period. Close Asset Management Ltd increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 16,035.1% during the third quarter. Close Asset Management Ltd now owns 1,140,264 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $194,746,000 after buying an additional 1,133,197 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 115.4% during the second quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,088,786 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $162,861,000 after buying an additional 583,384 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 11.3% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,107,665 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $701,795,000 after buying an additional 416,933 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 31,362,796 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $5,358,334,000 after buying an additional 412,281 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on BX shares. UBS Group reduced their price target on shares of Blackstone from $171.00 to $137.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on shares of Blackstone from $142.00 to $136.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 24th. Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Blackstone from $126.00 to $124.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 8th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $215.00 to $184.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $122.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Blackstone has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $151.05.

Blackstone News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Blackstone this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone announced a major joint venture with Google to build a U.S. AI data center platform focused on TPU compute-as-a-service, with Blackstone committing $5 billion in equity. Investors may view this as a meaningful long-term growth initiative tied to surging AI infrastructure demand. Blackstone Steps Deeper Into AI With Google TPUs Data Center Venture
• Positive Sentiment: A Blackstone-backed AI enterprise services company acquired Fractional AI, adding to the company’s AI ecosystem exposure and reinforcing the theme that Blackstone is expanding into artificial intelligence-related assets. Blackstone-backed AI enterprise services firm acquires Fractional AI
• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone insider Treasury Holdings disclosed a purchase of about 9.5 million shares, which can be interpreted as a strong confidence signal from a large shareholder. Insider Buying: Blackstone Major Shareholder Purchases 9,486,795 Shares of Stock
• Neutral Sentiment: Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust completed the full underwriter option in its IPO, bringing gross proceeds above $2 billion; this supports Blackstone’s platform expansion, but it is more of a capital-markets item than a direct catalyst for BX shares. Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust Announces Full Exercise and Closing of Underwriters Option
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports said Blackstone walked away from a $4 billion deal with New World Development, a setback for its deal pipeline but not necessarily a major driver of the stock by itself. Blackstone Reportedly Walks away from USD4B Deal With New World Dev

Insider Transactions at Blackstone

In other news, major shareholder Treasury Holdings I. Blackstone bought 9,486,795 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 15th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $20.00 per share, for a total transaction of $189,735,900.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the insider owned 9,111,800 shares in the company, valued at approximately $182,236,000. This represents a -2,529.85% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Holdings Iv Gp Mana Blackstone bought 2,868,069 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 20th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $26.15 per share, for a total transaction of $75,000,004.35. Following the purchase, the insider owned 18,628,295 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $487,129,914.25. This represents a 18.20% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. In the last quarter, insiders have purchased 13,502,092 shares of company stock valued at $294,789,896 and have sold 9,128,660 shares valued at $46,457,920. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Price Performance

Shares of BX opened at $118.63 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $88.13 billion, a PE ratio of 30.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $101.73 and a fifty-two week high of $190.09. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $117.51 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $133.72.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 23rd. The asset manager reported $1.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $3.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.45 billion. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.67% and a return on equity of 22.86%. The business’s revenue was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.11 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 4th were paid a $1.16 dividend. This represents a $4.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.9%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, May 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is currently 118.67%.

About Blackstone

Blackstone Inc (NYSE: BX) is a global investment firm focused on alternative asset management. Founded in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson and headquartered in New York City, the firm organizes and manages investment vehicles that acquire and operate businesses, real estate and credit investments, as well as provide hedge fund solutions and other alternative strategies for institutional and individual investors.

Blackstone’s business is organized around several principal investment platforms.