Kavar Capital Partners Group LLC Acquires 954 Shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Kavar Capital Partners Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX – Get Rating) by 2.6% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 37,324 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 954 shares during the quarter. Kavar Capital Partners Group LLC’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $2,769,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Cottage Street Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 6,039.5% in the 4th quarter. Cottage Street Advisors LLC now owns 4,231,358 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $880,000 after buying an additional 4,162,438 shares in the last quarter. Edgewood Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 48.7% in the 3rd quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 10,915,509 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $913,628,000 after buying an additional 3,574,211 shares in the last quarter. Axiom Investors LLC DE raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 185.2% in the 3rd quarter. Axiom Investors LLC DE now owns 1,353,170 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $113,260,000 after buying an additional 878,676 shares in the last quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd grew its position in Blackstone by 3,214.1% during the 3rd quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 753,130 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $63,037,000 after acquiring an additional 730,405 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in Blackstone by 17.8% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,367,094 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $365,526,000 after acquiring an additional 660,166 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.39% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on BX shares. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Blackstone from $100.00 to $101.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, April 21st. Evercore ISI increased their price target on Blackstone from $100.00 to $105.00 in a research report on Friday, April 21st. Oppenheimer decreased their price target on Blackstone from $111.00 to $106.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 21st. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Blackstone from $85.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on Blackstone from $86.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $102.70.

Blackstone Stock Up 2.7 %

Shares of BX traded up $2.22 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $85.75. The stock had a trading volume of 1,667,534 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,690,886. Blackstone Inc. has a twelve month low of $71.72 and a twelve month high of $123.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.89. The firm has a market cap of $60.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 101.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.50. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $84.64 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $86.18.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 20th. The asset manager reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.97. Blackstone had a return on equity of 18.51% and a net margin of 12.92%. The company had revenue of $1.38 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.44 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.55 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 73.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.3 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 8th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 1st were given a $0.82 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 28th. This represents a $3.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.83%. Blackstone’s payout ratio is 400.00%.

Insider Activity

In other Blackstone news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 85,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.32, for a total transaction of $7,337,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,145,448 shares in the company, valued at $98,875,071.36. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Joseph Baratta sold 85,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $86.32, for a total transaction of $7,337,200.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 1,145,448 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $98,875,071.36. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders acquired 10,950,343 shares of company stock worth $18,741,735 and sold 140,632,216 shares worth $1,725,831,950. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Blackstone Company Profile

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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.