FARMERS & MERCHANTS TRUST Co OF LONG BEACH Increases Stock Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

FARMERS & MERCHANTS TRUST Co OF LONG BEACH lifted its stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 153.3% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 4,301 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 2,603 shares during the period. FARMERS & MERCHANTS TRUST Co OF LONG BEACH’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $643,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in BX. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lifted its stake in Blackstone by 105.4% in the first quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 13,405 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,874,000 after buying an additional 6,878 shares during the last quarter. Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in Blackstone during the 2nd quarter worth $273,000. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC increased its stake in Blackstone by 22.1% in the second quarter. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC now owns 12,042 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,801,000 after purchasing an additional 2,182 shares during the period. Narwhal Capital Management boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 34.3% during the first quarter. Narwhal Capital Management now owns 64,614 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $9,032,000 after buying an additional 16,486 shares during the period. Finally, Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. increased its position in Blackstone by 14.5% in the 1st quarter. Edmond DE Rothschild Holding S.A. now owns 14,708 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $2,056,000 after acquiring an additional 1,863 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other news, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone bought 2,538,071 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 22nd. The shares were purchased at an average price of $25.61 per share, for a total transaction of $64,999,998.31. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 7,506,209 shares in the company, valued at $192,234,012.49. The trade was a 51.09% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the 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 transaction, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares in the company, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. This represents a 6.45% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and have sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Blackstone Stock Performance

BX opened at $175.40 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $174.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $153.01. The stock has a market cap of $129.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a 1-year low of $115.66 and a 1-year high of $200.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. 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 presently 110.75%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. JMP Securities raised their target price on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, July 11th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted 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. 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, Blackstone presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $172.38.

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.