William Blair Investment Management LLC Sells 28,777 Shares of StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP)

William Blair Investment Management LLC decreased its holdings in StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 580,052 shares of the company’s stock after selling 28,777 shares during the period. William Blair Investment Management LLC owned about 0.52% of StepStone Group worth $26,619,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the second quarter worth approximately $111,000. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the first quarter worth approximately $149,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the second quarter worth approximately $206,000. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the first quarter worth approximately $243,000. Finally, Versor Investments LP bought a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the second quarter worth approximately $303,000. Institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

STEP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on StepStone Group from $43.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on StepStone Group from $46.00 to $51.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Barclays increased their price target on StepStone Group from $46.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Evercore ISI increased their price target on StepStone Group from $41.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 15th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on StepStone Group from $51.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $45.88.

StepStone Group Stock Performance

Shares of STEP opened at $51.82 on Monday. StepStone Group LP has a 52 week low of $25.06 and a 52 week high of $56.18. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 57.58 and a beta of 1.28. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $50.29 and a 200-day moving average of $42.65.

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

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Friday, August 30th were given a dividend of $0.24 per share. This is a positive change from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.85%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 30th. StepStone Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 106.67%.

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.