Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Sold by CWA Asset Management Group LLC

CWA Asset Management Group LLC trimmed its stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.9% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 78,410 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 712 shares during the quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $11,729,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC increased its stake in Blackstone by 519,669.1% in the second 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. increased its stake 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 during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in Blackstone by 16.3% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $739,761,000 after purchasing an additional 742,829 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its stake in Blackstone by 4.4% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 4,291,546 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $599,872,000 after purchasing an additional 182,526 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Blackstone by 2.9% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,162,867 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $581,886,000 after purchasing an additional 117,724 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Blackstone Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of BX opened at $175.40 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $129.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a one year low of $115.66 and a one year high of $200.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 0.74. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $174.09 and a 200 day moving average price of $152.90.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $3.07 billion during 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%.Blackstone’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 posted $0.98 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.3%. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Friday, July 25th. JMP Securities boosted their price target on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price target on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Barclays upped their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Dbs Bank raised Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $172.38.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 113,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $175.69, for a total transaction of $19,852,970.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 695,757 shares in the company, valued at approximately $122,237,547.33. This represents a 13.97% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 21,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $171.46, for a total value of $3,686,390.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 453,836 shares in the company, valued at $77,814,720.56. The trade was a 4.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over 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. 1.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Blackstone 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.