Brown Miller Wealth Management LLC Increases Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Brown Miller Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 4.2% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 8,052 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 323 shares during the period. Brown Miller Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $1,204,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its position 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 period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Blackstone by 1.6% in 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 position in Blackstone during the first quarter worth about $151,524,000. Amundi raised its stake 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 during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Blackstone by 16.3% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $739,761,000 after purchasing an additional 742,829 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of NYSE:BX opened at $168.40 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $124.12 billion, a PE ratio of 45.27, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.77. The company’s 50 day moving average is $173.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $153.80. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $115.66 and a 52 week 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.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted 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. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.98 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were paid a $1.03 dividend. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage on Blackstone in a research note on Friday. They set an “outperform” rating and a $190.00 price target on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 12th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. Finally, JMP Securities increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.53.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, major shareholder Holdings I. L.P. Blackstone bought 1,189,532 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 18th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $25.22 per share, with a total value of $29,999,997.04. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 4,178,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $105,388,604.62. This represents a 39.79% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock worth $95,046,625 and have sold 16,984,634 shares worth $155,181,346. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

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.