First Bank & Trust Acquires 126 Shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

First Bank & Trust lifted its holdings in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 7.8% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,742 shares of the asset manager’s stock after acquiring an additional 126 shares during the period. First Bank & Trust’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $229,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Congress Wealth Management LLC DE raised its position in Blackstone by 36.6% in the 4th quarter. Congress Wealth Management LLC DE now owns 36,215 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,741,000 after purchasing an additional 9,699 shares during the period. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in Blackstone by 8.5% in the 4th quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 367,841 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $48,158,000 after purchasing an additional 28,856 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc raised its position in Blackstone by 8.9% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 254,099 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $33,267,000 after purchasing an additional 20,830 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the fourth quarter worth approximately $855,000. Finally, Asset Management One Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 5.5% during the fourth quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 303,069 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $40,348,000 after acquiring an additional 15,875 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Argus raised their target price on shares of Blackstone from $133.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Bank of America reduced their target price on shares of Blackstone from $141.00 to $132.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 19th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $144.00 to $145.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Finally, TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $117.00 to $114.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 19th. Thirteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $123.65.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, Director Ruth Porat bought 219 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $119.48 per share, for a total transaction of $26,166.12. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 34,445 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,115,488.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Blackstone Trading Down 0.3 %

NYSE:BX opened at $123.80 on Friday. Blackstone Inc. has a 12 month low of $88.59 and a 12 month high of $133.56. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $122.37 and a 200-day simple moving average of $124.50. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The company has a market capitalization of $88.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.75, a PEG ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.53.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 18th. The asset manager reported $0.98 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.98. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.84% and a return on equity of 17.33%. The business had revenue of $3.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.56 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.97 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 166.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 6th. Investors of record on Monday, April 29th were given a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, April 26th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.68%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 117.31%.

Blackstone 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.