Shares of sprawling alternative investment management company Blackstone (BX 4.80%) rose Monday on news of an analyst’s recommendation upgrade. The move pushed Blackstone’s stock price nearly 5% higher, a rate that was well above the 0.6% gain of the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.64%) on the day.
Price weakness makes it a buy, says prognosticator
The upgrading party was Swiss bank UBS, in the person of analyst Brennan Hawken. The pundit lifted his Blackstone recommendation to buy from neutral Monday morning, with a price target of $180 per share. This anticipates upside of almost 22% on the stock’s current level.
According to reports, Hawken believes the recent and quite aggressive sell-off by the market was unjustified, and has left the shares valued quite attractively. He wrote that the company’s Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust (BREIT) is a valuable asset that has unjustifiably attracted negative attention.
The company has been particularly active with its property operations lately. Earlier this month, it managed to raise $8 billion for its Real Estate Debt Strategies V fund, and will deploy those funds to investments not only in its native North America, but also Europe and Australia.
Unjustifiable punishment?
Over the years, Blackstone has grown into a wide-net financial services company, and its range is so broad it can be difficult to get a handle on the company at times. That being said, the recent sell-off seems a bit harsh, given there was no real crisis to justify such pessimism. With the shares currently trading at a relatively low level, perhaps this is indeed a good time to pile into the stock.
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