StepStone Group Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.28 (NASDAQ:STEP)

StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.28 per share on Monday, December 15th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 28th.

StepStone Group has a dividend payout ratio of 48.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect StepStone Group to earn $2.04 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 54.9%.

StepStone Group Trading Down 4.1%

STEP stock traded down $2.53 during trading on Friday, reaching $59.71. 448,708 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 617,212. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $63.30 and a 200-day moving average price of $59.40. StepStone Group has a 1 year low of $40.07 and a 1 year high of $70.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -19.43 and a beta of 1.36.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.05. StepStone Group had a negative net margin of 17.10% and a positive return on equity of 16.07%. The company had revenue of $282.34 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $272.15 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.45 earnings per share. StepStone Group’s revenue was up 35.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that StepStone Group will post 1.82 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets began coverage on shares of StepStone Group in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. They set an “outperform” rating and a $74.00 price objective for the company. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Oppenheimer lowered their target price on StepStone Group from $84.00 to $83.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $73.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on StepStone Group from $70.00 to $69.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have issued a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $74.29.

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.