Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.86

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 18th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, October 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.86 per share by the asset manager on Monday, November 4th. This represents a $3.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.00%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, October 28th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.82.

Blackstone has increased its dividend by an average of 20.2% annually over the last three years. Blackstone has a dividend payout ratio of 56.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Blackstone to earn $5.98 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.28 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 54.8%.

Blackstone Price Performance

NYSE:BX opened at $172.35 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $147.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $133.22. Blackstone has a 1-year low of $88.59 and a 1-year high of $175.94. The firm has a market cap of $123.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 60.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.77.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 18th. The asset manager reported $0.96 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.99 by ($0.03). The firm had revenue of $3.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.58 billion. Blackstone had a return on equity of 17.43% and a net margin of 19.35%. The company’s revenue was up 166.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.93 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Blackstone will post 4.46 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total value of $17,561,522.88. Following the transaction, the director now owns 799,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $120,610,146.69. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, insider John G. Finley sold 35,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $131.74, for a total transaction of $4,610,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 429,386 shares in the company, valued at $56,567,311.64. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total value of $17,561,522.88. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 799,749 shares in the company, valued at $120,610,146.69. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently commented on BX shares. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Blackstone from $148.00 to $155.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $164.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Blackstone from $169.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Redburn Atlantic assumed coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $134.00 price target on the stock. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Blackstone from $125.00 to $146.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday. Thirteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $152.41.

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.