Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.86 Per Share

Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, October 18th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 2.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, October 28th. This is an increase from Blackstone’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.82.

Blackstone has raised 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. Research 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 Trading Up 1.5 %

BX opened at $172.35 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $147.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $133.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $123.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 60.90, a PEG ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.51. Blackstone has a 12 month low of $88.59 and a 12 month high of $175.94.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The asset manager reported $0.96 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.99 by ($0.03). Blackstone had a net margin of 19.35% and a return on equity of 17.43%. The firm had revenue of $3.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.58 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.93 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 166.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Blackstone will post 4.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Bank of America increased their target price on Blackstone from $171.00 to $192.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Piper Sandler lowered Blackstone from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $149.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $145.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Blackstone from $112.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Redburn Atlantic assumed coverage on shares of Blackstone in a research report on Tuesday, August 27th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $134.00 price target for the company. Thirteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $152.41.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of Blackstone stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the director now owns 799,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $120,610,146.69. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, Director Joseph Baratta sold 116,448 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.81, for a total transaction of $17,561,522.88. Following the sale, the director now owns 799,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $120,610,146.69. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider John G. Finley sold 35,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $131.74, for a total value of $4,610,900.00. Following the sale, 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.