Integral Investment Advisors Inc. Buys New Shares in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Integral Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm acquired 1,622 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $212,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Delta Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Blackstone during the 4th quarter worth approximately $229,000. OLD Second National Bank of Aurora raised its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. OLD Second National Bank of Aurora now owns 35,788 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $4,685,000 after acquiring an additional 523 shares during the last quarter. Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt boosted its holdings in Blackstone by 98.3% in the fourth quarter. Livforsakringsbolaget Skandia Omsesidigt now owns 1,586 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $208,000 after acquiring an additional 786 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its holdings in Blackstone by 11.5% during the 4th quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 69,471 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $9,095,000 after purchasing an additional 7,159 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Scissortail Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Blackstone in the 4th quarter valued at about $266,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Blackstone Stock Performance

Blackstone stock traded down $3.01 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $120.18. 4,360,099 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,702,302. 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 stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $126.81 and its 200 day simple moving average is $117.64. The firm has a market cap of $85.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 67.32, a P/E/G ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.51. Blackstone Inc. has a 52 week low of $79.92 and a 52 week high of $133.56.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 18th. The asset manager reported $0.98 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.00 by ($0.02). Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.30% and a net margin of 17.34%. The business had revenue of $3.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.56 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.97 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 166.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Blackstone Inc. will post 4.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, May 6th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 29th will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.76%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio is presently 205.46%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 28,852 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.05, for a total value of $3,694,498.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 982,221 shares in the company, valued at approximately $125,773,399.05. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 28,852 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.05, for a total transaction of $3,694,498.60. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 982,221 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $125,773,399.05. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 49,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.93, for a total transaction of $6,268,570.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 393,143 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,294,783.99. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 2,587,168 shares of company stock valued at $37,816,476. 1.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on BX shares. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $126.00 to $129.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Blackstone from $144.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group raised their price objective on Blackstone from $135.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Oppenheimer lowered shares of Blackstone from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $119.97.

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.