Lazard Asset Management LLC Sells 137,818 Shares of Backblaze, Inc. $BLZE

Key Points

• Lazard Asset Management cut its Backblaze stake by 46.2% in the first quarter, selling 137,818 shares and retaining 160,333 shares worth approximately $553,000. Institutional investors collectively own 54.03% of BLZE.
• Analyst sentiment remains broadly positive: eight analysts rate Backblaze a Buy, with a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $19.71. Several firms recently raised their targets to between $21 and $24.
• Backblaze’s latest quarterly results exceeded expectations, with earnings of $0.08 per share versus a $0.02 estimate and revenue of $42.71 million versus $39.94 million expected. However, the company remains unprofitable, with a negative net margin of 13.07%.

Lazard Asset Management LLC reduced its holdings in Backblaze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLZE - Free Report) by 46.2% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 160,333 shares of the company's stock after selling 137,818 shares during the period. Lazard Asset Management LLC owned 0.27% of Backblaze worth $553,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in BLZE. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Backblaze by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,693,508 shares of the company's stock valued at $24,996,000 after acquiring an additional 134,034 shares in the last quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP acquired a new stake in shares of Backblaze in the third quarter valued at about $17,021,000. Pillsbury Lake Capital LLC bought a new stake in Backblaze during the fourth quarter worth about $8,058,000. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Backblaze by 4.1% during the fourth quarter. Whetstone Capital Advisors LLC now owns 1,520,055 shares of the company's stock worth $7,083,000 after acquiring an additional 59,263 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Backblaze by 4.2% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,341,863 shares of the company's stock valued at $6,255,000 after purchasing an additional 53,583 shares during the last quarter. 54.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. Lake Street Capital reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $21.00 price target on shares of Backblaze in a research report on Tuesday. William Blair raised Backblaze from an "underperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. B. Riley Financial raised their target price on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday. Citigroup reissued a "market outperform" rating on shares of Backblaze in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, Citizens Jmp boosted their target price on shares of Backblaze from $16.00 to $21.00 and gave the stock a "market outperform" rating in a report on Tuesday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $19.71.

Backblaze Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ BLZE opened at $18.11 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Backblaze, Inc. has a 12 month low of $3.26 and a 12 month high of $23.99. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $12.46 and a 200-day moving average of $7.42. The company has a market capitalization of $1.09 billion, a P/E ratio of -53.26 and a beta of 1.56.

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 3rd. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.06. Backblaze had a negative return on equity of 16.73% and a negative net margin of 13.07%.The business had revenue of $42.71 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $39.94 million. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Backblaze, Inc. will post -0.37 EPS for the current year.

About Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc, a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.

Continue following MarketBeat

Add MarketBeat as your preferred source on Google to see our latest stories in your feed.

Add As Preferred Source