StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Adam Beatty: Yes, that’s exactly right. No, no, I appreciate it. Thank you, Johnny.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ben Budish with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Ben Budish: Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to ask about the retail piece. It sounds like a lot of optimism around kind of strong continued growth there. I was wondering, I guess, maybe a two-part question. If one, you tend to go to market a little bit more through RIAs versus wires and that market is a little bit more fragmented. So could you talk a little bit about your sort of approach to adviser engagement and education, just given it’s not as easier €“ not quite as easy as walking into a very large bank speaking to a large group. And then kind of along the same lines, you haven’t seen any redemptions or meaningful increase in redemptions, which has been great. Can you kind of remind us like how is the fund structured to handle liquidity? I think we’ve all gotten a real education in non-traded REITs over the past several months. But just curious how SPRIM in particular, is set up to handle potential liquidity requirements?

Jason Ment: Hi, Ben, this is Jason. Thanks for the questions. In terms of the go-to-market and sales support, with the RIAs, you’re right that it is much more fragmented. And if you think about our network of distribution partners, we’ve got 150 different platforms allocating with SPRIM, and we’ve got about 40 allocating with SPRING, and there is a vendiagram there with some overlap. But the education component, that’s really why you see the CapEx that we’ve made in building out the private wealth team over the last couple of years, you need to be out in the field with those groups in their offices, conducting education with the financial advisers, potentially with the clients assisting with that as well. We take a lot of time in preparing collateral that’s able to be shared by them directly with their clients as well as conducting events.

We conduct diligence sessions in a couple of different locations around the country periodically and invite advisers to come in and do a half or a full day teach-in as well. So it’s a multipronged approach for sure. But the reality is, a lot of folks have been educating this channel for a long time, and it’s going to continue well on into the future. It’s not a one-time event. In terms of the second question on the redemptions, with SPRIM, that’s a quarterly tender. There is a 5% per quarter cap on that tender, we kind of always elect to do less, but we’ve tendered for the full amount each quarter. We structured the portfolio from an asset perspective to generate sufficient liquidity. We have a credit facility as well that we can tap in order to assist with liquidity if necessary.

And with SPRIM as the only fund that we’ve got €“ SPRIM is U.S. fund that the only one that’s actually in the active tendering now. The other thing I would remind you is that the majority of that capital is still in the soft lock period. So there is some €“ still some kind of structural protection against tendering right now. As it relates to SPRING, the one difference I would cite is that it’s a 2.5% per quarter tender as opposed to 5% per quarter tender, given the different focus from an asset perspective.

Ben Budish: Okay, great. Thanks so much. If I could maybe get one more and for Johnny perhaps, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you were expecting a step up in G&A expense next quarter. I was wondering if you could perhaps quantify that a bit more and give us a little bit more color on where that’s coming from?