Perennial Investment Advisors LLC Buys 17 Shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)

Perennial Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) by 3.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 549 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 17 shares during the period. Perennial Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in BlackRock were worth $563,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in BLK. IAG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Collier Financial purchased a new position in shares of BlackRock in the fourth quarter valued at $32,000. Compass Planning Associates Inc bought a new stake in BlackRock in the fourth quarter worth $33,000. Atwood & Palmer Inc. purchased a new stake in BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in BlackRock during the fourth quarter valued at $39,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.69% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director J. Richard Kushel sold 10,000 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,072.64, for a total transaction of $10,726,400.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 68,433 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $73,403,973.12. This trade represents a 12.75 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In the last quarter, insiders sold 20,430 shares of company stock worth $21,234,629. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BLK has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of BlackRock from $1,155.00 to $1,175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on BlackRock from $1,261.00 to $1,275.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. UBS Group boosted their target price on BlackRock from $1,017.00 to $1,045.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $1,225.00 to $1,160.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of BlackRock from $1,053.00 to $1,046.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BlackRock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $1,130.85.

BlackRock Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:BLK opened at $822.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 5.23 and a current ratio of 5.23. The firm has a market cap of $127.68 billion, a PE ratio of 19.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.90 and a beta of 1.38. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $968.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $992.26. BlackRock, Inc. has a one year low of $745.55 and a one year high of $1,084.22.

BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 15th. The asset manager reported $11.93 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $11.52 by $0.41. The business had revenue of $5.68 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.57 billion. BlackRock had a return on equity of 16.32% and a net margin of 31.21%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $9.66 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that BlackRock, Inc. will post 47.41 EPS for the current year.

BlackRock Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th were given a dividend of $5.21 per share. This is an increase from BlackRock’s previous quarterly dividend of $5.10. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. This represents a $20.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.53%. BlackRock’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.62%.

BlackRock Profile

BlackRock, Inc is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks.