Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund Purchases 200 Shares of Blackstone Inc. $BX

Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund boosted its position in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 63,045 shares of the asset manager’s stock after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the period. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s holdings in Blackstone were worth $9,430,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of BX. 1248 Management LLC acquired a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter valued at $25,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Blackstone during the 1st quarter worth about $28,000. Wealth Preservation Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone during the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Anderson Financial Strategies LLC bought a new position in Blackstone in the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Family CFO Inc bought a new position in Blackstone in the 2nd quarter valued at $28,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BX has been the topic of several recent research reports. JMP Securities raised their price target on Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target 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 reduced their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $181.00 to $171.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane increased their target price on Blackstone from $166.00 to $178.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, September 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have assigned a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Blackstone has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $179.00.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, insider Vikrant Sawhney sold 50,850 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.64, for a total value of $8,829,594.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 737,248 shares in the company, valued at approximately $128,015,742.72. The trade was a 6.45% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder Private Multi-Asset Blackstone acquired 2,538,071 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 22nd. The stock was bought at an average price of $25.61 per share, with a total value of $64,999,998.31. Following the acquisition, the insider directly owned 7,506,209 shares in the company, valued at $192,234,012.49. This represents a 51.09% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders acquired 3,727,877 shares of company stock valued at $95,046,625 and sold 16,984,634 shares valued at $155,181,346. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Shares of Blackstone stock opened at $153.88 on Monday. Blackstone Inc. has a 12 month low of $115.66 and a 12 month high of $200.96. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The company has a market capitalization of $113.42 billion, a PE ratio of 41.37, a PEG ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.77. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $172.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $154.28.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, November 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter. Blackstone had a return on equity of 20.47% and a net margin of 20.83%.The company had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter. On average, research analysts predict that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 EPS for the current year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th were paid a $1.03 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 4th. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. This is a positive change from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 110.75%.

Blackstone Company Profile

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.