Blackstone Inc. (BX) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.83 on May 6th

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 18th, RTT News reports. Shareholders 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.67%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 26th.

Blackstone has increased its dividend payment by an average of 20.2% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 1 years. Blackstone has a dividend payout ratio of 61.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Blackstone to earn $6.12 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 61.4%.

Blackstone Stock Up 1.7 %

Shares of BX stock opened at $124.22 on Wednesday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $126.30 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $118.20. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market cap of $88.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.89, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.51. Blackstone has a 52 week low of $79.92 and a 52 week high of $133.56.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 18th. The asset manager reported $0.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.98. The firm had revenue of $3.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.56 billion. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.84% and a return on equity of 17.33%. The business’s revenue was up 166.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.97 EPS. Analysts predict that Blackstone will post 4.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Blackstone from $127.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 22nd. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $135.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $105.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 19th. Oppenheimer lowered shares of Blackstone from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $141.00 to $132.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 19th. Thirteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $122.94.

Insider Transactions at Blackstone

In other 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 12,802 shares in the company, valued at $142,102.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In related 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 393,143 shares in the company, valued at $50,294,783.99. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at 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 transaction, the insider now owns 12,802 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $142,102.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 2,587,168 shares of company stock worth $37,816,476. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

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.