Walleye Capital LLC Acquires New Shares in StepStone Group Inc. $STEP

Walleye Capital LLC acquired a new stake in StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 6,876 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $359,000.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of STEP. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its stake in StepStone Group by 353.2% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 661,799 shares of the company’s stock valued at $38,305,000 after purchasing an additional 515,760 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in StepStone Group by 6.9% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,419,566 shares of the company’s stock valued at $387,524,000 after purchasing an additional 481,385 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in StepStone Group by 13.2% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,011,015 shares of the company’s stock valued at $209,495,000 after purchasing an additional 468,745 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in StepStone Group by 7.8% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,038,665 shares of the company’s stock valued at $315,400,000 after purchasing an additional 438,790 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in StepStone Group in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $17,018,000. 55.54% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at StepStone Group

In related news, insider Michael I. Mccabe sold 67,718 shares of StepStone Group stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.54, for a total value of $3,828,775.72. Following the transaction, the insider owned 423,864 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,965,270.56. This trade represents a 13.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Scott W. Hart sold 10,000 shares of StepStone Group stock in a transaction on Monday, August 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.44, for a total value of $614,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 50,000 shares in the company, valued at $3,072,000. The trade was a 16.67% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 97,718 shares of company stock worth $5,658,876 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 16.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on STEP. Barclays raised their price objective on StepStone Group from $62.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 8th. Zacks Research downgraded StepStone Group from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 13th. Evercore ISI raised their price target on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on StepStone Group from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 28th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $84.00 price target (up previously from $81.00) on shares of StepStone Group in a research report on Monday, August 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, StepStone Group has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $64.00.

StepStone Group Stock Down 1.6%

STEP stock opened at $61.08 on Wednesday. StepStone Group Inc. has a 52-week low of $40.07 and a 52-week high of $70.38. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $59.62 and its 200-day simple moving average is $56.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -19.83 and a beta of 1.37.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported $0.40 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.42 by ($0.02). StepStone Group had a positive return on equity of 16.07% and a negative net margin of 17.10%.The business had revenue of $237.47 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $238.99 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.48 EPS. StepStone Group’s revenue for the quarter was up 95.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that StepStone Group Inc. will post 1.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 29th will be issued a dividend of $0.28 per share. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. This is a positive change from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 29th. StepStone Group’s payout ratio is -36.36%.

StepStone Group Profile

StepStone Group Inc is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in direct, fund of funds, secondary direct, and secondary indirect investments. For direct investment, it seeks to invest in private debt, venture debt, incubation, mezzanine, distressed/vulture, seed/startup, early venture, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, later stage, turnaround, growth capital, industry consolidation, recapitalization, buyout investments in mature and middle market companies.