HighTower Advisors LLC Trims Stock Holdings in StepStone Group Inc. $STEP

HighTower Advisors LLC decreased its stake in StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) by 17.5% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 41,631 shares of the company’s stock after selling 8,854 shares during the quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC’s holdings in StepStone Group were worth $2,174,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its position in StepStone Group by 77.4% in the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 14,413 shares of the company’s stock worth $753,000 after buying an additional 6,289 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of StepStone Group by 38.5% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,169 shares of the company’s stock worth $61,000 after acquiring an additional 325 shares during the period. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of StepStone Group by 42.8% in the first quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 23,527 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,229,000 after acquiring an additional 7,053 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of StepStone Group by 2.7% in the first quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 24,558 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,283,000 after acquiring an additional 641 shares during the period. Finally, BNP Paribas Financial Markets bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group in the fourth quarter worth about $558,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on STEP shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on StepStone Group from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 28th. Barclays upped their price objective on StepStone Group from $62.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 8th. Zacks Research lowered StepStone Group from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 13th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Finally, Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $84.00 price objective (up previously from $81.00) on shares of StepStone Group in a research note on Monday, August 11th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $64.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Scott W. Hart sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.28, for a total value of $612,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 60,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,676,800. This trade represents a 14.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Jason P. Ment sold 55,608 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.71, for a total value of $3,375,961.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 34,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,073,550.05. The trade was a 61.95% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 422,141 shares of company stock valued at $25,129,882 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 16.47% of the company’s stock.

StepStone Group Trading Up 5.1%

Shares of StepStone Group stock opened at $61.71 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $58.42 and a 200 day moving average of $56.00. StepStone Group Inc. has a 12 month low of $40.07 and a 12 month high of $70.38. The firm has a market cap of $7.18 billion, a PE ratio of -20.04 and a beta of 1.37.

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

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 29th will be paid a $0.28 dividend. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 29th. This is a positive change from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. StepStone Group’s dividend payout ratio is -31.17%.

StepStone Group Company 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.