QRG Capital Management Inc. Acquires 5,874 Shares of Blackstone Inc. $BX

QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 131,405 shares of the asset manager’s stock after buying an additional 5,874 shares during the quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $19,656,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in BX. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its position in shares of Blackstone by 519,669.1% in 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 purchasing an additional 70,118,948 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 1.6% in 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 period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position 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 valued at $739,761,000 after acquiring an additional 742,829 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 4.4% in the 1st 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 valued at $599,872,000 after purchasing an additional 182,526 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position 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 in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on BX. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Blackstone to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, JMP Securities boosted their target price on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $175.53.

Blackstone Trading Up 1.1%

Blackstone stock opened at $168.40 on Friday. Blackstone Inc. has a one year low of $115.66 and a one year high of $200.96. The business’s fifty day moving average is $173.81 and its 200 day moving average is $153.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $124.12 billion, a PE ratio of 45.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.77. 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.83% and a return on equity of 20.47%. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.77 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.98 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In related news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the sale, 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 sale was disclosed in a 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 Blackstone stock in a transaction on 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 90 days, insiders have bought 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 owned by insiders.

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.