Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Acquired by Verity & Verity LLC

Verity & Verity LLC boosted its holdings in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 3.2% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 12,085 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 374 shares during the quarter. Verity & Verity LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $1,808,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its holdings in Blackstone by 519,669.1% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 70,132,441 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $10,490,411,000 after buying an additional 70,118,948 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Blackstone by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 69,492,377 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $10,394,670,000 after acquiring an additional 1,494,796 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Blackstone by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 16,542,863 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $2,462,706,000 after purchasing an additional 227,416 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 742,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 4.7% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 4,532,941 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $678,037,000 after buying an additional 202,245 shares in the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BX has been the subject of a number of research reports. HSBC decreased their price objective on Blackstone from $179.00 to $178.00 in a research report on Monday, October 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $173.00 to $174.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 24th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Blackstone from $200.00 to $215.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on Blackstone from $208.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 24th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their target price on Blackstone from $173.00 to $168.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 24th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $179.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 113,000 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $175.69, for a total transaction of $19,852,970.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 695,757 shares in the company, valued at $122,237,547.33. The trade was a 13.97% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director James Breyer bought 13,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $143.86 per share, with a total value of $1,999,654.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 68,906 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,912,817.16. The trade was a 25.27% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Insiders have purchased 2,950,751 shares of company stock valued at $79,050,138 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of Blackstone stock opened at $141.66 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $104.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.76. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. Blackstone Inc. has a 12-month low of $115.66 and a 12-month high of $194.23. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $158.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $158.09.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter. The business had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter. Blackstone had a return on equity of 22.30% and a net margin of 20.56%. Research analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, November 10th. Investors of record on Monday, November 3rd were issued a $1.29 dividend. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.03. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, November 3rd. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 147.43%.

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.