Kera Capital Partners Inc. Acquires Shares of 1,826 Blackstone Inc. $BX

Key Points

• Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired 1,826 shares of Blackstone Inc., valued at approximately $273,000, according to their recent 13F filing.
• Blackstone recently increased its quarterly dividend to $1.03 per share, up from $0.93, with an annualized yield of 2.3% and a payout ratio of 110.75%.
• The company's stock has a market capitalization of $133.74 billion and reported earnings of $1.21 per share for the last quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations.

Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX - Free Report) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,826 shares of the asset manager's stock, valued at approximately $273,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in Blackstone by 14,608.6% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,322,598 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $184,873,000 after acquiring an additional 1,313,606 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted 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 acquiring an additional 1,102,949 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Blackstone during the first quarter worth about $151,524,000. Amundi boosted its stake in Blackstone by 69.3% during the first quarter. Amundi now owns 2,421,502 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $323,000,000 after acquiring an additional 990,947 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted 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 acquiring an additional 742,829 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.00% of the company's stock.

Blackstone Stock Down 1.3%

BX opened at $181.44 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $170.04 and a 200-day moving average price of $150.49. Blackstone Inc. has a twelve month low of $115.66 and a twelve month high of $200.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $133.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.77, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.77.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.77 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 32.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were issued a dividend of $1.03 per share. This is an increase from Blackstone's previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. Blackstone's dividend payout ratio is currently 110.75%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently commented on BX. Citigroup reissued a "market perform" rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Saturday, July 19th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $153.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, July 11th. Barclays upped their target price 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. Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $157.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Blackstone currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $172.38.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, Director Ruth Porat bought 222 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction on Monday, August 11th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $170.29 per share, with a total value of $37,804.38. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 38,753 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,599,248.37. This represents a 0.58% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 21,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $171.46, for a total transaction of $3,686,390.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 453,836 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $77,814,720.56. This represents a 4.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders bought 1,189,806 shares of company stock valued at $30,046,627 and sold 16,871,634 shares valued at $135,328,376. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company's stock.

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.

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