Blackstone (NYSE:BX) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.02 EPS

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The asset manager reported $0.98 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.00 by ($0.02), RTT News reports. Blackstone had a net margin of 17.34% and a return on equity of 17.30%. The firm had revenue of $3.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.56 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.97 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 166.9% compared to the same quarter last year.

Blackstone Trading Down 2.4 %

BX stock opened at $120.28 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $126.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $117.66. Blackstone has a fifty-two week low of $79.92 and a fifty-two week high of $133.56. 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 $85.96 billion, a PE ratio of 65.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.51.

Blackstone Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, May 6th. Investors of record on Monday, April 29th will be issued a $0.83 dividend. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.76%. Blackstone’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 205.46%.

Insider Activity at Blackstone

In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 28,852 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.05, for a total value of $3,694,498.60. Following the completion of 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 at the SEC website. In other Blackstone news, major shareholder Bx Buzz Ml-1 Gp Llc sold 2,509,316 shares of Blackstone 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 12,802 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $142,102.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Joseph Baratta sold 28,852 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction on Friday, February 9th. The stock was 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 2,587,168 shares of company stock valued at $37,816,476. 1.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Blackstone

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Blackstone by 1.4% during the fourth 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 raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 3.7% in the fourth 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 raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 2.1% in the first 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 raised its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 7.1% in the first 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 bought a new stake in shares of Blackstone in the fourth quarter valued at about $510,355,000. 70.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on BX. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $127.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Barclays raised their price target 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. TD Cowen started coverage on shares of Blackstone in a report on Thursday, January 4th. They set a “market perform” rating and a $118.00 price target on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $144.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Oppenheimer downgraded shares of Blackstone from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus 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.