Ascent Group LLC Has $1.90 Million Stock Holdings in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Ascent Group LLC grew its position in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 12,708 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 298 shares during the quarter. Ascent Group LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $1,901,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 519,669.1% during the second 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. grew its stake in Blackstone by 1.6% during the first 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. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its stake in Blackstone by 16.3% during the first 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. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC grew its stake in Blackstone by 4.4% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 4,291,546 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $599,872,000 after buying an additional 182,526 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Blackstone by 2.9% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,162,867 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $581,886,000 after purchasing an additional 117,724 shares during the last quarter. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone acquired 2,538,071 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 22nd. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $25.61 per share, for a total transaction of $64,999,998.31. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider directly owned 7,506,209 shares in the company, valued at approximately $192,234,012.49. The trade was a 51.09% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 21,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $171.46, for a total transaction of $3,686,390.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 453,836 shares in the company, valued at approximately $77,814,720.56. The trade was a 4.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, 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. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Blackstone Price Performance

Shares of BX stock opened at $168.40 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $173.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $153.80. 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 stock has a market cap of $124.12 billion, a PE ratio of 45.27, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.77. Blackstone Inc. has a 52-week low of $115.66 and a 52-week high of $200.96.

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

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a $1.03 dividend. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.4%. This is a boost from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 110.75%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BX has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Evercore ISI increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. BNP Paribas Exane increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $166.00 to $178.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, September 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $172.00 to $173.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, JMP Securities raised their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have assigned a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.53.

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.