Legal & General Group Plc trimmed its blackstone stake by 1.1% in the fourth quarter, yet still held 4,628,508 shares valued at $713,438,000. The filing shows a large institution stayed heavily exposed even after selling 49,489 shares, a move that leaves it with 0.63% of Blackstone.
Legal & General’s 4.6 Million Shares
4,628,508 shares is the scale of Legal & General’s position after the sale, and it remained one of Blackstone’s larger institutional holders. Institutional investors own 70.00% of Blackstone’s stock, so changes at this level can shift how much of the company sits in long-term portfolios rather than trading accounts.
1.1% is a modest cut, but the dollar value is not small. Legal & General’s remaining stake was worth $713,438,000 in its most recent SEC filing, which shows the firm kept a sizable allocation even after reducing the position during the quarter.
May 1 Insider Sale
30,014 shares is what Vikrant Sawhney sold on Friday, May 1, at an average price of $125.79 for a total of $3,775,461.06. After the trade, he directly owned 899,669 shares valued at approximately $113,169,363.51, leaving his position down 3.23%.
12,355,303 shares were bought by insiders over the last 90 days, worth $264,789,896, while insiders sold 9,128,660 shares worth $46,457,920. Corporate insiders currently own 1.00% of Blackstone stock, so the latest sale sits inside a broader period of net insider buying rather than a one-way exit.
Analysts Split on Blackstone
Eleven analysts rate Blackstone a Buy, eleven rate it Hold and one rates it Sell. That mix leaves the stock with no clean consensus, even as firms adjust targets around it.
$131.00 is HSBC’s new target after cutting from $164.00 on April 10, while BMO Capital Markets raised its target from $126.00 to $132.00 on April 13 and kept an outperform rating. Citizens JMP cut its target from $195.00 to $190.00 on April 22, UBS Group lowered its target from $171.00 to $137.00 on February 20, and The Goldman Sachs Group trimmed its target from $118.00 to $116.00 on April 24.
$26,000 to $30,000 is the size of the new stakes taken by REAP Financial Group LLC, Family CFO Inc, Ares Financial Consulting LLC, Richardson Financial Services Inc. and Redmont Wealth Advisors LLC across the third and fourth quarters. Those positions are tiny next to Legal & General’s holding, which leaves Blackstone’s ownership base split between one very large institution, a set of fresh small buyers and a stream of recent insider trades.
