Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Receives $112.33 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX – Get Rating) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the eighteen research firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have assigned a hold recommendation and nine have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $112.33.

A number of analysts have commented on the stock. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Thursday. They set a “sell” rating on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $95.00 to $103.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 27th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $85.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Blackstone from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $104.00 to $105.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 24th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Holdings L.P. Blackstone III sold 99,889,464 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $12.00, for a total value of $1,198,673,568.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, major shareholder Holdings L.P. Blackstone III sold 99,889,464 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $12.00, for a total transaction of $1,198,673,568.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, major shareholder Holdings I/Ii Gp L. Blackstone sold 28,562,652 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.71, for a total transaction of $248,780,698.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 57,028 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $496,713.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 140,532,616 shares of company stock valued at $1,726,902,967 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Blackstone

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BX. Whalerock Point Partners LLC acquired a new position in Blackstone during the third quarter valued at approximately $282,571,000. Mach 1 Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the third quarter worth $25,000. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the third quarter worth $26,000. HWG Holdings LP bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the third quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Trust Co. of Vermont raised its position in Blackstone by 133.3% during the third quarter. Trust Co. of Vermont now owns 350 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $30,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.39% of the company’s stock.

Blackstone Stock Down 2.7 %

BX stock opened at $84.89 on Friday. Blackstone has a 52 week low of $71.72 and a 52 week high of $132.93. The company has a market capitalization of $59.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 1.52. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $89.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $88.03. The company has a current ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX – Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 26th. The asset manager reported $1.07 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95 by $0.12. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.52% and a return on equity of 19.43%. The company had revenue of $1.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.71 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Blackstone will post 4.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 13th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 6th were paid a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.29%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.90. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is currently 153.59%.

About Blackstone

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Blackstone, Inc engages in the provision of investment and fund management services. It operates through the following segments: Real Estate, Private Equity, Credit and Insurance, and Hedge Fund Solutions. The Real Estate segment includes management of opportunistic real estate funds, Core+ real estate funds, high-yield real estate debt funds, and liquid real estate debt funds.