Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Acquired by Jacobi Capital Management LLC

Jacobi Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 4.8% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 9,487 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 437 shares during the quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $1,326,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of BX. Brighton Jones LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 34.6% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 7,917 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,365,000 after purchasing an additional 2,035 shares in the last quarter. Gotham Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 6.1% during the 4th quarter. Gotham Asset Management LLC now owns 20,641 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $3,559,000 after purchasing an additional 1,183 shares in the last quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Blackstone during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $765,000. Nuveen Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 20.2% during the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 2,256,604 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $389,084,000 after purchasing an additional 379,481 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NorthRock Partners LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 160.9% during the 4th quarter. NorthRock Partners LLC now owns 10,336 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,782,000 after purchasing an additional 6,375 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other Blackstone news, Director Ruth Porat bought 222 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 11th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $170.29 per share, with a total value of $37,804.38. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 38,753 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,599,248.37. The trade was a 0.58% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were 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. Over the last ninety days, insiders have purchased 1,189,806 shares of company stock worth $30,046,627 and have sold 16,871,634 shares worth $135,328,376. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Citigroup reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a report on Saturday, July 19th. JMP Securities increased their target price on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $172.38.

Blackstone Trading Up 3.2%

Shares of NYSE BX opened at $183.91 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $135.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.45 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a 12-month low of $115.66 and a 12-month high of $200.96. 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’s 50 day simple moving average is $169.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $150.43.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were paid a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 110.75%.

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.