Venture Visionary Partners LLC Increases Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Venture Visionary Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 2.3% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 38,487 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 852 shares during the quarter. Venture Visionary Partners LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $5,380,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bernard Wealth Management Corp. purchased a new stake in Blackstone during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. Putney Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. Vision Financial Markets LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $35,000. Finally, Garde Capital Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $36,000. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BX has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Friday, July 25th. JMP Securities upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Barclays upped 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. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Dbs Bank raised shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Blackstone currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $170.12.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the firm’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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Joseph Baratta sold 100,000 shares of the firm’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 in the company, valued at approximately $135,353,571.52. This trade represents a 11.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders bought 1,189,806 shares of company stock worth $30,046,627 and sold 16,850,134 shares worth $131,641,986. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Down 1.5%

Shares of NYSE BX opened at $169.13 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $159.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $149.62. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $124.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.47, a P/E/G ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 1.71. Blackstone Inc. has a 12-month low of $115.66 and a 12-month high of $200.96.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

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