Creative Planning Boosts Stake in StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP)

Creative Planning boosted its position in shares of StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) by 45.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 18,674 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 5,794 shares during the period. Creative Planning’s holdings in StepStone Group were worth $857,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in STEP. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new position in shares of StepStone Group in the second quarter valued at $111,000. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S purchased a new position in shares of StepStone Group in the 1st quarter worth $149,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of StepStone Group in the 2nd quarter worth about $206,000. MQS Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of StepStone Group during the 1st quarter valued at about $243,000. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of StepStone Group during the 2nd quarter valued at about $266,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

StepStone Group Trading Up 0.6 %

NASDAQ STEP opened at $59.97 on Friday. StepStone Group LP has a 12 month low of $25.06 and a 12 month high of $61.39. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $54.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $45.84. The stock has a market cap of $6.64 billion, a PE ratio of 78.91 and a beta of 1.28.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.48 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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. The business’s revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.26 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side 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. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 30th were given a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 30th. This is a positive change from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.60%. StepStone Group’s payout ratio is 126.32%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Barclays boosted their price objective on StepStone Group from $51.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on StepStone Group from $51.50 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $44.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $49.44.

StepStone Group Profile

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