GAMMA Investing LLC Purchases 460 Shares of StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP)

GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) by 291.1% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 618 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 460 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC’s holdings in StepStone Group were worth $35,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. American International Group Inc. grew its holdings in StepStone Group by 1.2% in the first quarter. American International Group Inc. now owns 27,152 shares of the company’s stock worth $970,000 after purchasing an additional 322 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its position in StepStone Group by 10.8% during the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 9,898 shares of the company’s stock valued at $354,000 after buying an additional 963 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its stake in StepStone Group by 0.4% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 288,459 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,309,000 after buying an additional 1,061 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in StepStone Group by 3.8% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 32,068 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,472,000 after acquiring an additional 1,181 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arizona State Retirement System grew its stake in shares of StepStone Group by 8.5% during the second quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 15,281 shares of the company’s stock worth $701,000 after acquiring an additional 1,195 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

STEP has been the subject of several research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. UBS Group upped their target price on StepStone Group from $44.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 21st. Barclays lifted their price target on StepStone Group from $51.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $73.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $53.44.

StepStone Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ STEP opened at $60.88 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 67.64 and a beta of 1.28. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $55.59 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $46.72. StepStone Group LP has a fifty-two week low of $25.06 and a fifty-two week high of $61.48.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.35 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $186.40 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $181.15 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.26 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that StepStone Group LP will post 1.83 earnings per share for the current year.

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Friday, August 30th were paid a $0.24 dividend. This is a boost from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 30th. StepStone Group’s payout ratio is currently 106.67%.

About StepStone Group

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.