Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.83

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 18th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 29th will be paid a dividend of 0.83 per share by the asset manager on Monday, May 6th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.70%.

Blackstone has raised its dividend payment by an average of 20.2% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 1 consecutive years. Blackstone has a dividend payout ratio of 61.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Blackstone to earn $6.15 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.76 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 61.1%.

Blackstone Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of NYSE BX opened at $123.19 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.80. The firm has a market cap of $88.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 67.32, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.51. Blackstone has a 1 year low of $79.92 and a 1 year high of $133.56. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $126.81 and its 200-day simple moving average is $117.64.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The asset manager reported $1.11 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.95 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $1.29 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.48 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.30% and a net margin of 17.34%. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.07 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Blackstone will post 4.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 2,509,316 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Sunday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $11.10, for a total value of $27,853,407.60. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 12,802 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $142,102.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Blackstone news, insider John G. Finley sold 49,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.93, for a total transaction of $6,268,570.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 393,143 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,294,783.99. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 2,509,316 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Sunday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.10, for a total transaction of $27,853,407.60. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 12,802 shares in the company, valued at $142,102.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 2,587,168 shares of company stock valued at $37,816,476. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Blackstone

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Blackstone by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 62,972,648 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $8,244,379,000 after purchasing an additional 880,745 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 22,495,670 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,668,954,000 after acquiring an additional 798,734 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,157,334 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $1,419,249,000 after acquiring an additional 332,962 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 7.1% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 7,925,167 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $695,952,000 after acquiring an additional 522,561 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone during the 4th quarter valued at $510,355,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on BX. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Blackstone from $120.00 to $144.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on Blackstone from $123.00 to $127.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. JMP Securities restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Bank of America lifted their target price on Blackstone from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $127.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $119.92.

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.