Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Bought by Brown Lisle Cummings Inc.

Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 26,365 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the quarter. Blackstone accounts for approximately 1.0% of Brown Lisle Cummings Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 22nd biggest holding. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc.’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $3,944,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. 1248 Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the first quarter worth $25,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. acquired a new position in Blackstone during the first quarter valued at $28,000. Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Blackstone during the first quarter valued at $28,000. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC acquired a new position in Blackstone during the first quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Livelsberger Financial Advisory acquired a new position in Blackstone during the second quarter valued at $30,000. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on BX. Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, JMP Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $172.38.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total transaction of $8,829,594.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares in the company, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. The trade was a 6.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing 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 dated Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was 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 ninety days, insiders acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Down 0.1%

BX stock opened at $175.40 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $129.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 1.77. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $174.09 and a 200-day simple moving average of $152.81. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $115.66 and a 52 week high of $200.96.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were paid a dividend of $1.03 per share. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 110.75%.

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.