Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Sold by Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd.

Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. cut its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 2.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 220,031 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 5,854 shares during the period. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd.’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $33,955,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 71,667,695 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $11,046,859,000 after purchasing an additional 840,258 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 31,362,796 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $5,358,334,000 after purchasing an additional 412,281 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,324,989 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,251,474,000 after purchasing an additional 329,379 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 4,677,997 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $799,236,000 after purchasing an additional 145,056 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 11.3% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,107,665 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $701,795,000 after purchasing an additional 416,933 shares in the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on BX shares. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $215.00 to $184.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $122.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $154.00 to $156.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, April 24th. Argus dropped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $163.00 to $146.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $150.00 target price on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Tuesday, April 21st. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $151.05.

Key Headlines Impacting Blackstone

Here are the key news stories impacting Blackstone this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone and Google announced a joint venture to build a new AI cloud company centered on Google’s Tensor Processing Units, giving Blackstone exposure to a fast-growing AI infrastructure market. Blackstone Announces Joint Venture with Google to Create New TPU Cloud
• Positive Sentiment: Reports say Blackstone is committing $5 billion in equity to the venture, which may be viewed as a significant long-term investment in AI compute capacity and a potential new growth driver. Blackstone and Google form AI infrastructure joint venture focused on TPU cloud expansion
• Positive Sentiment: Market commentary said the Blackstone-Google deal is pressuring smaller cloud infrastructure names, suggesting investors may see Blackstone as better positioned than leveraged AI infrastructure competitors. Google and Blackstone to Create New AI Cloud Company. The Stocks Are Rising.
• Neutral Sentiment: TD Cowen lowered its price target on Blackstone to $133 from $140, but kept a Buy rating, which points to continued upside expectations despite the trim.
• Neutral Sentiment: Blackstone also abandoned its pursuit of the €2.5 billion Stroeer deal, a separate M&A item that does not appear central to the stock’s immediate move.
• Neutral Sentiment: A major shareholder, Treasury Holdings I. Blackstone, disclosed a large share purchase, which can be read as a confidence signal but is less likely to move the stock by itself.

Blackstone Trading Down 2.3%

NYSE BX opened at $114.31 on Wednesday. Blackstone Inc. has a 12 month low of $101.73 and a 12 month high of $190.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The company has a market capitalization of $84.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.63. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $117.21 and its 200 day moving average price is $134.14.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 23rd. The asset manager reported $1.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.34 by $0.02. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.67% and a return on equity of 22.86%. The company had revenue of $3.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.45 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.11 EPS. Blackstone’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 4th were given a dividend of $1.16 per share. This represents a $4.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 118.67%.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Tactical Opportunit Blackstone sold 1,596,142 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.00, for a total transaction of $15,961,420.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Treasury Holdings I. Blackstone bought 9,486,795 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 15th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $20.00 per share, for a total transaction of $189,735,900.00. Following the acquisition, the insider owned 9,111,800 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $182,236,000. This represents a -2,529.85% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders bought 13,502,092 shares of company stock worth $294,789,896 and sold 9,128,660 shares worth $46,457,920. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Company Profile

Blackstone Inc (NYSE: BX) is a global investment firm focused on alternative asset management. Founded in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson and headquartered in New York City, the firm organizes and manages investment vehicles that acquire and operate businesses, real estate and credit investments, as well as provide hedge fund solutions and other alternative strategies for institutional and individual investors.

Blackstone’s business is organized around several principal investment platforms.