West Financial Advisors LLC Has $26,000 Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

West Financial Advisors LLC trimmed its position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 74.3% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 176 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 508 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $26,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its stake 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 worth $10,490,411,000 after acquiring an additional 70,118,948 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Blackstone by 1.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $9,504,702,000 after purchasing an additional 1,102,949 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter worth about $151,524,000. Amundi grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 69.3% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $323,000,000 after acquiring an additional 990,947 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 742,829 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 11th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. BNP Paribas Exane boosted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $166.00 to $178.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Blackstone has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $172.71.

Blackstone Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of NYSE:BX opened at $166.72 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $122.89 billion, a PE ratio of 44.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. Blackstone Inc. has a 12-month low of $115.66 and a 12-month high of $200.96. The business has a 50 day moving average of $174.00 and a 200-day moving average of $153.61.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a $1.03 dividend. 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 2.5%. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s payout ratio is presently 110.75%.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of Blackstone 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 sale, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares in the company, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. The trade was a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total value of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders purchased 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Company 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.