Insider Monkey has been scouring insider trades this year to see which stocks are seeing increased interest from corporate officers. Amid the market’s broader shift towards defensive, safe stocks that also pay dividends, we saw that insiders are flocking to buy financial and bank dividend stocks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C). We covered these transactions and some of the best financial dividend stocks insiders are buying recently in a separate article.
Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX), being an alternative investment management giant with $155 billion market cap, deserves special attention and analysis.
Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 51
Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) is one of the biggest names in the financials and investment management industry. The company has over $1 trillion in assets under management. As of the end of March this year, Blackstone’s cash, cash equivalents and corporate treasury investments stood at a whopping $8.4 billion.
Blackstone is one of the best financials stocks with latest insider buying. On May 6, Ruth Porat, a director at Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX), bought 42,850 shares of Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) at $119.58 per share. The total value of this transaction was $33,121. Since then the stock has gained about 1%, as of May 13.
Valuation and Dividend
Blackstone’s PE ratio stands 45, which is higher than industry peers. However, given the company’s growth mode and steady dividends, Blackstone’s higher PE ratio is justified. Blackstone’s dividends also look safe, backed by huge cash positions and years of dividend growth. The company’s dividend grew at a CAGR of about 9% over the past decade.
During the company’s earnings call in April, Blackstone talked about 2024 expectations and shareholder returns:
“Looking forward in 2024, the market environment will remain complex. The economy is stronger than expected but is starting to slow a bit. In terms of inflation, despite the recent US CPI readings, we are seeing a decelerating wage growth and minimal input cost increases across many of our companies. In real estate, we see shelter costs moderating, contrary to government data. We believe inflation will trend lower this year, although, the pace of decline has slowed recently. Geopolitical turbulence, including wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, adds further uncertainty to the business environment. And 2024 is a major election year as we all know with nearly half of the world’s population going to the polls, which injects unpredictability around the future of important policies that impact the global economy.
Blackstone is well positioned against this evolving backdrop. Our portfolio is concentrated in compelling sectors and we have the industry’s largest dry powder balance of nearly $200 billion to take advantage of opportunities. Our long term capital provides the flexibility and firepower to invest while affording us the patience to sell assets when the time is right. The firm itself could not be in a stronger position with minimal net debt and no insurance liabilities, allowing us to distribute $4.7 billion to shareholders over the past 12 months through dividends and share repurchases. And we are in the early days of penetrating markets of enormous size and potential.”
As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, 51 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX). The biggest stakeholder of Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) during this period was Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital which owns a $290 million stake in Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX). Like BX, hedge funds are also piling into JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C).
Despite this positive sentiment, the stock begs the question: is it the best financial dividend stock insiders are buying in 2024? Does it make sense for individual investors to buy Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) right now?
Insider Monkey’s analysis shows that Blackstone is not the best financial dividend stock with latest insider buying.
Click to see 10 Best Financial Dividend Stocks with Insider Buying that are better than Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX).
Disclosure: None
