Scott W. Hart Sells 10,000 Shares of StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) Stock

StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) CEO Scott W. Hart sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.43, for a total value of $614,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 110,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,757,300. This represents a 8.33 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link.

StepStone Group Price Performance

StepStone Group stock opened at $58.59 on Friday. StepStone Group LP has a one year low of $32.58 and a one year high of $70.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.80 billion, a PE ratio of -34.67 and a beta of 1.31. The business’s fifty day moving average is $61.22 and its 200 day moving average is $59.57.

StepStone Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th will be given a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. StepStone Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -56.80%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of STEP. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in StepStone Group by 19.0% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,599,875 shares of the company’s stock valued at $324,122,000 after acquiring an additional 895,521 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in StepStone Group in the fourth quarter valued at about $46,163,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA bought a new position in StepStone Group in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,340,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in StepStone Group by 353.2% in the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 661,799 shares of the company’s stock valued at $38,305,000 after acquiring an additional 515,760 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in StepStone Group by 6.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,938,181 shares of the company’s stock valued at $401,582,000 after acquiring an additional 411,133 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

STEP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Barclays increased their target price on StepStone Group from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on StepStone Group from $81.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on StepStone Group from $64.00 to $70.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on StepStone Group from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their target price on StepStone Group from $63.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $69.21.

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.