Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Sold by First Long Island Investors LLC

First Long Island Investors LLC cut its position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.5% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 163,726 shares of the asset manager’s stock after selling 773 shares during the period. Blackstone makes up 1.9% of First Long Island Investors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 20th largest position. First Long Island Investors LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $22,886,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Invst LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the first quarter worth about $891,000. Modern Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 3.2% in the first quarter. Modern Wealth Management LLC now owns 13,035 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,822,000 after buying an additional 404 shares during the last quarter. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the first quarter worth about $28,000. Strs Ohio purchased a new position in Blackstone during the first quarter worth approximately $27,213,000. Finally, Intrua Financial LLC grew its holdings in Blackstone by 2.2% in the first quarter. Intrua Financial LLC now owns 4,871 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $681,000 after purchasing an additional 107 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Performance

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

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.77 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict 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%. This is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is 110.75%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have commented on BX. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Dbs Bank upgraded Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Finally, Citigroup restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Saturday, July 19th. Nine equities research 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 stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $172.38.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total value of $8,829,594.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. This trade represents a 6.45% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have acquired 1,189,806 shares of company stock valued at $30,046,627 and have sold 16,871,634 shares valued at $135,328,376. 1.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.