Harbor Asset Planning Inc. Purchases Shares of 628 Blackstone Inc. $BX

Harbor Asset Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm purchased 628 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $94,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its stake in shares of Blackstone by 519,669.1% in the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 70,132,441 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $10,490,411,000 after acquiring an additional 70,118,948 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $9,504,702,000 after acquiring an additional 1,102,949 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised 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 worth $739,761,000 after acquiring an additional 742,829 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC raised its stake in shares of Blackstone by 4.4% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 4,291,546 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $599,872,000 after acquiring an additional 182,526 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised 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 worth $581,886,000 after acquiring an additional 117,724 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total value of $8,829,594.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 737,248 shares in the company, valued at $128,015,742.72. This represents a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have acquired 2,538,345 shares of company stock valued at $65,046,628 and have sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on BX shares. BMO Capital Markets assumed coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $190.00 target price for the company. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $181.00 to $171.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $185.00 to $170.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Dbs Bank raised shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Blackstone from $172.00 to $173.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $180.26.

Blackstone Stock Down 3.6%

Shares of NYSE:BX opened at $158.01 on Friday. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $115.66 and a 52 week high of $200.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.74. The company has a market capitalization of $116.47 billion, a PE ratio of 42.48, a PEG ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $171.91 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $154.68.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.83% and a return on equity of 20.47%. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter. Analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.6%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Blackstone 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.