Head to Head Review: StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) vs. Euronet Worldwide (NASDAQ:EEFT)

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) and Euronet Worldwide (NASDAQ:EEFT) are both mid-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, valuation, profitability, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Volatility & Risk

StepStone Group has a beta of 1.31, meaning that its share price is 31% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Euronet Worldwide has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for StepStone Group and Euronet Worldwide, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
StepStone Group	1	2	7	0	2.60
Euronet Worldwide	1	3	3	0	2.29

StepStone Group currently has a consensus price target of $70.12, suggesting a potential upside of 64.37%. Euronet Worldwide has a consensus price target of $95.00, suggesting a potential upside of 21.35%. Given StepStone Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe StepStone Group is more favorable than Euronet Worldwide.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares StepStone Group and Euronet Worldwide”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
StepStone Group	$1.99 billion	2.55	-$535.81 million	($6.80)	-6.27
Euronet Worldwide	$4.34 billion	0.69	$309.50 million	$6.93	11.30

Euronet Worldwide has higher revenue and earnings than StepStone Group. StepStone Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Euronet Worldwide, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares StepStone Group and Euronet Worldwide’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
StepStone Group	-26.88%	37.69%	4.78%
Euronet Worldwide	7.15%	28.37%	5.74%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

55.5% of StepStone Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 91.6% of Euronet Worldwide shares are held by institutional investors. 16.5% of StepStone Group shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 12.2% of Euronet Worldwide shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

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. It prefers to invest in natural resources, technology, healthcare, services, materials, manufacturing, consumer durables, apparel, hotels, restaurants and leisure, media, retailing, power, utilities consumer staples, financials, telecommunication services, clean energy/renewables, transport, social, natural capital, infrastructure, corporate, real estate, credit and real asset. The firm invests globally with a focus on United States, North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, New Zealand, China, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia region. The firm invests between 5% and 40% in emerging markets. For fund of fund investment, it seeks to invest in private equity funds, venture capital funds, Special situation funds, Real estate funds, Infrastructure funds, mezzanine funds, and turnaround/distressed funds. It considers investments in both domestic and international funds. It also seeks to make co-investments and follow-on investments and considers partial interests in funds. StepStone Group Inc. was founded in 2007 and is based in New York, New York with additional offices across North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

About Euronet Worldwide

Euronet Worldwide, Inc. provides payment and transaction processing and distribution solutions to financial institutions, retailers, service providers, and individual consumers worldwide. It operates through three segments: Electronic Fund Transfer Processing, epay, and Money Transfer. The Electronic Fund Transfer Processing segment provides electronic payment solutions, including automated teller machine (ATM) cash withdrawal and deposit services, ATM network participation, outsourced ATM and point-of-sale (POS) management solutions, credit and debit and prepaid card outsourcing, card issuing, and merchant acquiring services. It also offers ATM and POS currency conversion, ATM surcharge, advertising, customer relationship management, mobile top-up, bill payment, fraud management, foreign remittance and cardless payout, banknote recycling, and tax-refund services; and integrated electronic financial transaction software solutions for electronic payment and transaction delivery systems. The epay segment distributes and processes prepaid mobile airtime and other electronic payment products; and provides payment processing services for various prepaid products, cards, and services, as well as vouchers and physical gift fulfillment, and gift card distribution and processing services. This segment operates a network of approximately 821,000 POS terminals. The Money Transfer segment offers consumer-to-consumer and account-to-account money transfer, customers bill payment, check cashing, foreign currency exchange, mobile top-up, and cash management and foreign currency risk management services, as well as payment alternatives, such as money orders and prepaid debit cards. The company was formerly known as Euronet Services, Inc. and changed its name to Euronet Worldwide, Inc. in August 2001. Euronet Worldwide, Inc. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas.