Leonteq Securities AG Makes New Investment in Blackstone Inc. $BX

Leonteq Securities AG bought a new stake in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 6,781 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $1,045,000.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 71,667,695 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $11,046,859,000 after purchasing an additional 840,258 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 1.3% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 31,362,796 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $5,358,334,000 after purchasing an additional 412,281 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 4.7% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 7,324,989 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,251,474,000 after purchasing an additional 329,379 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 3.2% during the third quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 4,677,997 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $799,236,000 after acquiring an additional 145,056 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in Blackstone by 11.3% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,107,665 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $701,795,000 after acquiring an additional 416,933 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, major shareholder Treasury Holdings I. Blackstone bought 9,486,795 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 15th. The stock was bought at an average price of $20.00 per share, with a total value of $189,735,900.00. Following the purchase, the insider owned 9,111,800 shares in the company, valued at approximately $182,236,000. The trade was a -2,529.85% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Ruth Porat bought 355 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 11th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $123.04 per share, with a total value of $43,679.20. Following the purchase, the director owned 41,818 shares in the company, valued at $5,145,286.72. The trade was a 0.86% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have purchased 13,502,092 shares of company stock worth $294,789,896 and have sold 9,128,660 shares worth $46,457,920. Insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Blackstone

Here are the key news stories impacting Blackstone this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone announced a major joint venture with Google to build a U.S. AI data center platform focused on TPU compute-as-a-service, with Blackstone committing $5 billion in equity. Investors may view this as a meaningful long-term growth initiative tied to surging AI infrastructure demand. Blackstone Steps Deeper Into AI With Google TPUs Data Center Venture
• Positive Sentiment: A Blackstone-backed AI enterprise services company acquired Fractional AI, adding to the company’s AI ecosystem exposure and reinforcing the theme that Blackstone is expanding into artificial intelligence-related assets. Blackstone-backed AI enterprise services firm acquires Fractional AI
• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone insider Treasury Holdings disclosed a purchase of about 9.5 million shares, which can be interpreted as a strong confidence signal from a large shareholder. Insider Buying: Blackstone Major Shareholder Purchases 9,486,795 Shares of Stock
• Neutral Sentiment: Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust completed the full underwriter option in its IPO, bringing gross proceeds above $2 billion; this supports Blackstone’s platform expansion, but it is more of a capital-markets item than a direct catalyst for BX shares. Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust Announces Full Exercise and Closing of Underwriters Option
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports said Blackstone walked away from a $4 billion deal with New World Development, a setback for its deal pipeline but not necessarily a major driver of the stock by itself. Blackstone Reportedly Walks away from USD4B Deal With New World Dev

Blackstone Price Performance

NYSE:BX opened at $118.63 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $88.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.34, a P/E/G ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.63. Blackstone Inc. has a 52-week low of $101.73 and a 52-week high of $190.09. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $117.51 and a 200 day moving average of $133.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 23rd. The asset manager reported $1.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.34 by $0.02. Blackstone had a return on equity of 22.86% and a net margin of 20.67%.The company had revenue of $3.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.45 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.11 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 4th were paid a $1.16 dividend. This represents a $4.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 4th. Blackstone’s payout ratio is 118.67%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BX has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Weiss Ratings lowered Blackstone from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Blackstone from $154.00 to $156.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their price target on Blackstone from $118.00 to $116.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 24th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Blackstone from $122.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded Blackstone from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $151.05.

Blackstone Company Profile

Blackstone Inc (NYSE: BX) is a global investment firm focused on alternative asset management. Founded in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson and headquartered in New York City, the firm organizes and manages investment vehicles that acquire and operate businesses, real estate and credit investments, as well as provide hedge fund solutions and other alternative strategies for institutional and individual investors.

Blackstone’s business is organized around several principal investment platforms.