Blackstone Inc. $BX Holdings Boosted by Ascent Group LLC

Ascent Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 12,708 shares of the asset manager’s stock after acquiring an additional 298 shares during the period. Ascent Group LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $1,901,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $10,490,411,000 after acquiring an additional 70,118,948 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% during 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 in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $151,524,000. Amundi boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 69.3% in the first quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $323,000,000 after purchasing an additional 990,947 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in Blackstone by 16.3% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $739,761,000 after buying an additional 742,829 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total transaction of $8,829,594.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 737,248 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. This represents a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Holdings I. L.P. Blackstone purchased 1,189,532 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 18th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $25.22 per share, with a total value of $29,999,997.04. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 4,178,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $105,388,604.62. This represents a 39.79% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and have sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Up 1.1%

Shares of BX opened at $168.40 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $173.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $153.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $124.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.27, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.74. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $115.66 and a 52 week high of $200.96.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were given a dividend of $1.03 per share. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 110.75%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BX has been the topic of several analyst reports. Bank of America lowered their target price on shares of Blackstone from $200.00 to $199.00 in a research report on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 11th. JMP Securities increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $172.00 to $173.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and nine have issued 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 $175.53.

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.