Key Financial Inc Buys New Shares in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Key Financial Inc bought a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 12,109 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $1,811,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 519,669.1% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 70,132,441 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $10,490,411,000 after buying an additional 70,118,948 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $9,504,702,000 after buying an additional 1,102,949 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter worth about $151,524,000. Amundi lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 69.3% during the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $323,000,000 after buying an additional 990,947 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in 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 buying an additional 742,829 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BX has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Piper Sandler cut their target price on Blackstone from $173.00 to $168.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 24th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and set a $195.00 target price on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Friday, October 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Blackstone from $173.00 to $174.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 24th. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Blackstone from $190.00 to $180.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on Blackstone from $171.00 to $165.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 24th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $179.74.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of BX stock opened at $144.11 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $106.22 billion, a PE ratio of 41.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a 52-week low of $115.66 and a 52-week high of $200.96. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $168.00 and its 200 day moving average price is $157.09. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter. Blackstone had a return on equity of 22.30% and a net margin of 20.56%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 10th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 3rd will be issued a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, November 3rd. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.6%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.03. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 147.43%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone acquired 2,538,071 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 acquisition, the insider owned 7,506,209 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $192,234,012.49. This trade represents a 51.09% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director James Breyer acquired 13,170 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 29th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $151.23 per share, for a total transaction of $1,991,699.10. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 55,006 shares in the company, valued at $8,318,557.38. This represents a 31.48% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last three months, insiders have bought 2,551,515 shares of company stock worth $67,038,327 and have sold 16,884,634 shares worth $138,445,346. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.