Monument Capital Management Takes $272,000 Position in StepStone Group Inc. $STEP

Monument Capital Management acquired a new stake in StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 4,900 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $272,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of STEP. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its position 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 valued at $1,229,000 after acquiring an additional 7,053 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC lifted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 641 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 325 shares during the period. Handelsbanken Fonder AB lifted its position in StepStone Group by 44.1% in the first quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 21,228 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,109,000 after purchasing an additional 6,500 shares during the period. Finally, Vicus Capital lifted its position in StepStone Group by 9.8% in the first quarter. Vicus Capital now owns 4,020 shares of the company’s stock worth $210,000 after purchasing an additional 359 shares during the period. 55.54% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Scott W. Hart sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.70, for a total value of $647,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 40,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,588,000. This trade represents a 20.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO David Y. Park sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.26, for a total value of $63,260.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 22,020 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,392,985.20. This trade represents a 4.34% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 31,000 shares of company stock valued at $1,937,460. 16.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on STEP. BMO Capital Markets began coverage on StepStone Group in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $74.00 target price for the company. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $84.00 target price (up from $81.00) on shares of StepStone Group in a research report on Monday, August 11th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d+)” rating on shares of StepStone Group in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised StepStone Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $64.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Wednesday, September 17th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their target price on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $69.71.

StepStone Group Price Performance

StepStone Group stock opened at $62.91 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $62.25 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $57.42. StepStone Group Inc. has a 52-week low of $40.07 and a 52-week high of $70.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.32 billion, a P/E ratio of -20.43 and a beta of 1.37.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last released 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 company had revenue of $237.47 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $238.99 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.48 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 95.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that StepStone Group Inc. will post 1.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 29th were paid a $0.28 dividend. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.8%. This is a boost from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 29th. StepStone Group’s dividend 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.