S Bank Fund Management Ltd Takes Position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

S Bank Fund Management Ltd bought a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 4,469 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $625,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $9,504,702,000 after purchasing an additional 1,102,949 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 10.8% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,016,046 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,209,707,000 after purchasing an additional 681,512 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 16.3% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $739,761,000 after buying an additional 742,829 shares during the period. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 5,195,551 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $895,817,000 after buying an additional 144,926 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 2.9% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,162,867 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $581,886,000 after buying an additional 117,724 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Evercore ISI upped 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. JMP Securities upped their target price on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Monday, April 21st. Finally, Citigroup reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Saturday, July 19th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $170.12.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of BX stock opened at $176.58 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $130.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.71. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $115.66 and a 52 week high of $200.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $157.68 and a 200-day moving average of $150.27.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company 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 is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Insider Transactions at Blackstone

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 100,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $167.36, for a total transaction of $16,736,000.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 808,757 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $135,353,571.52. This represents a 11.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Ruth Porat bought 222 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $170.29 per share, for a total transaction of $37,804.38. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 38,753 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,599,248.37. This trade represents a 0.58% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders purchased 1,189,806 shares of company stock valued at $30,046,627 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Company 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.