1,352 Shares in Blackstone Inc. $BX Bought by Abacus Planning Group Inc.

Abacus Planning Group Inc. bought a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 1,352 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $202,000.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Blackstone in a report on Saturday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets started coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Friday. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $190.00 price target on the stock. Finally, JMP Securities raised their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $176.00.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 113,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.69, for a total value of $19,852,970.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 695,757 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $122,237,547.33. This represents a 13.97% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total value of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of BX opened at $168.40 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. Blackstone Inc. has a 1-year low of $115.66 and a 1-year high of $200.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $124.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.27, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.77. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $173.81 and its 200 day moving average price is $153.77.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 firm’s quarterly revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is 110.75%.

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.