George Kaiser Family Foundation Buys New Shares in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

George Kaiser Family Foundation bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 1,938 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $271,000.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 1,102,949 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 681,512 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in Blackstone by 16.3% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $739,761,000 after acquiring an additional 742,829 shares during the last quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main increased its holdings in Blackstone by 2.9% in the 4th 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 acquiring an additional 144,926 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Blackstone by 2.9% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,162,867 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $581,886,000 after acquiring an additional 117,724 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, Director Ruth Porat purchased 222 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $170.29 per share, with a total value of $37,804.38. Following the transaction, the director owned 38,753 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,599,248.37. This trade represents a 0.58% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, 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 completion of the sale, the director directly owned 808,757 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $135,353,571.52. The trade was a 11.00% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have bought 1,189,806 shares of company stock worth $30,046,627 and have sold 16,850,134 shares worth $131,641,986. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on BX. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Blackstone in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Blackstone presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $170.12.

Blackstone Price Performance

Shares of BX stock opened at $171.61 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.75. The company has a market capitalization of $126.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.13, a P/E/G ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 1.71. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $159.05 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $149.87. Blackstone Inc. has a one year low of $115.66 and a one year high of $200.96.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were given a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. 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.