Blackstone Inc. $BX Shares Sold by Cladis Investment Advisory LLC

Key Points

• Cladis Investment Advisory LLC significantly reduced its holdings in Blackstone Inc. by 71.4% during the first quarter, owning only 2,000 shares after selling 5,000 shares.
• Several hedge funds, including the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and Narwhal Capital Management, increased their stakes in Blackstone, with Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund growing its holdings by 105.4%.
• Blackstone Inc. reported a quarterly earnings of $1.21 per share, exceeding estimates, and also raised its dividend to $1.03 per share, reflecting a payout ratio of 110.75%.

Cladis Investment Advisory LLC lowered its position in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX - Free Report) by 71.4% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,000 shares of the asset manager's stock after selling 5,000 shares during the period. Cladis Investment Advisory LLC's holdings in Blackstone were worth $280,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in BX. Capital Research Global Investors purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the fourth quarter valued at $239,837,000. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 14,608.6% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,322,598 shares of the asset manager's stock valued at $184,873,000 after buying an additional 1,313,606 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 67,997,581 shares of the asset manager's stock valued at $9,504,702,000 after buying an additional 1,102,949 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the first quarter valued at $151,524,000. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Blackstone by 16.3% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 5,292,320 shares of the asset manager's stock valued at $739,761,000 after buying an additional 742,829 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 16,689,884 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.26, for a total transaction of $104,478,673.84. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO David Payne sold 9,400 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $169.97, for a total value of $1,597,718.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 54,488 shares of the company's stock, valued at $9,261,325.36. The trade was a 14.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have acquired 1,189,806 shares of company stock valued at $30,046,627 and have sold 16,850,134 shares valued at $131,641,986. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have issued reports on BX. 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. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their target price on Blackstone from $170.00 to $192.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a "neutral" rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Finally, Barclays lifted their target price on Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Blackstone presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $170.12.

Blackstone Stock Up 4.2%

NYSE BX traded up $6.8030 during trading on Friday, hitting $170.2430. The company's stock had a trading volume of 5,187,162 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,648,507. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 0.74 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The company has a market cap of $125.48 billion, a PE ratio of 45.76, a P/E/G ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.71. The business's 50 day simple moving average is $161.69 and its 200-day simple moving average is $149.76. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.The firm 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 earnings per share. The company's revenue was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Investors of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.4%. 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 dividend payout ratio is presently 110.75%.

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.