Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC Reduces Stock Position in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC cut its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 38.4% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,116 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 3,812 shares during the quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $915,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. 1248 Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $25,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Family CFO Inc bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $28,000. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total value of $104,478,673.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone purchased 2,538,071 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 22nd. The shares were bought at an average price of $25.61 per share, with a total value of $64,999,998.31. Following the purchase, the insider owned 7,506,209 shares in the company, valued at $192,234,012.49. This represents a 51.09% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock worth $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares worth $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on BX shares. Citigroup reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a report on Saturday, July 19th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Saturday, September 27th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Blackstone has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $176.00.

Blackstone Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of Blackstone stock opened at $168.40 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The firm has a market cap of $124.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.77. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $173.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $153.77. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.The business had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.77 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. Blackstone’s revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast 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 given a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. 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 payout ratio is currently 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.