Oppenheimer Increases StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) Price Target to $73.00

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) had its price target raised by Oppenheimer from $56.00 to $73.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the stock.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on STEP. Barclays raised their target price on StepStone Group from $51.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. UBS Group upped their price target on StepStone Group from $44.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on StepStone Group from $51.50 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price target on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $53.44.

StepStone Group Trading Down 0.2 %

StepStone Group stock opened at $60.88 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $55.59 and its 200 day simple moving average is $46.81. StepStone Group has a 12 month low of $25.06 and a 12 month high of $61.48. The company has a market cap of $6.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 67.64 and a beta of 1.28.

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

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Friday, August 30th were issued a $0.24 dividend. This is an increase 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 presently 106.67%.

Institutional Trading of StepStone Group

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in StepStone Group by 9.8% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 6,994,497 shares of the company’s stock valued at $222,635,000 after purchasing an additional 627,059 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in StepStone Group by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,270,144 shares of the company’s stock worth $167,749,000 after buying an additional 90,974 shares in the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of StepStone Group by 74.3% in the first quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 50,099 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,791,000 after buying an additional 21,354 shares during the last quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP increased its stake in StepStone Group by 1.6% in the first quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 2,948,665 shares of the company’s stock valued at $105,385,000 after purchasing an additional 46,860 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S acquired a new stake in shares of StepStone Group in the first quarter worth approximately $149,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

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.