StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.24

StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 7th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be given a dividend of 0.24 per share on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.49%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th.

StepStone Group has increased its dividend payment by an average of 35.7% per year over the last three years. StepStone Group has a payout ratio of 38.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect StepStone Group to earn $2.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 47.5%.

StepStone Group Price Performance

NASDAQ:STEP opened at $64.48 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $7.43 billion, a P/E ratio of -38.15 and a beta of 1.31. StepStone Group has a 1 year low of $32.58 and a 1 year high of $70.38. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $61.33 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $58.59.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.44 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $271.68 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $215.51 million. StepStone Group had a negative net margin of 11.29% and a positive return on equity of 11.53%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.26 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that StepStone Group will post 1.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other StepStone Group news, CEO Scott W. Hart sold 22,091 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $63.24, for a total value of $1,397,034.84. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 157,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,986,165.16. This represents a 12.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Michael I. Mccabe sold 4,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.25, for a total transaction of $257,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 686,516 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,108,653. The trade was a 0.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 29,820 shares of company stock valued at $1,908,856. Corporate insiders own 18.44% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

STEP has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Evercore ISI decreased their price target on shares of StepStone Group from $71.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 17th. Barclays increased their target price on StepStone Group from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on StepStone Group from $64.00 to $70.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. UBS Group increased their price objective on StepStone Group from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on StepStone Group from $81.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $68.36.

StepStone Group Company 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.