Stiles Financial Services Inc Acquires 1,615 Shares of Blackstone Inc. $BX

Stiles Financial Services Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 11.4% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 15,804 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 1,615 shares during the quarter. Stiles Financial Services Inc’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $2,363,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in 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 purchasing an additional 70,118,948 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in 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 buying an additional 1,102,949 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $151,524,000. Amundi boosted its position in Blackstone by 69.3% during the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $323,000,000 after buying an additional 990,947 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Blackstone by 16.3% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $739,761,000 after buying an additional 742,829 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Blackstone news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. The trade was 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 this link. Also, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone bought 2,538,071 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 22nd. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $25.61 per share, with a total value of $64,999,998.31. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider directly owned 7,506,209 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $192,234,012.49. The trade was a 51.09% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders bought 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

BX has been the subject of several analyst reports. BNP Paribas Exane increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $166.00 to $178.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, September 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $172.00 to $173.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $194.00 to $188.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $179.00.

Blackstone Trading Down 1.2%

Shares of NYSE BX opened at $160.52 on Friday. Blackstone Inc. has a 1 year low of $115.66 and a 1 year high of $200.96. The stock has a market cap of $118.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 1.77. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $172.86 and a 200 day moving average of $154.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.83% and a return on equity of 20.47%. The company had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.77 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.98 EPS. Blackstone’s revenue was up 32.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.6%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.