GCMG vs STEP: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of November 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. GCMG and STEP share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined GCMG and STEP exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

GCM Grosvenor is an open-architecture alternative asset manager, meaning it does not primarily run its own buyout deals. It designs and manages portfolios of other people's private funds, co-investments and hedge fund strategies on behalf of large institutions, and increasingly invests directly alongside sponsors. The firm was founded in 1971, employs roughly 530 people out of Chicago with offices in New York, London, Frankfurt, Singapore and Hong Kong, and listed on Nasdaq in November 2020 through a merger with the CF Finance Acquisition Corp II blank-check company. As of June 30, 2026 it managed about $97 billion, up roughly 13% year over year, of which about $78 billion was fee-paying (also up about 13%). At the first quarter, private markets (private equity, infrastructure, real estate and credit) accounted for about $64.4 billion and absolute return strategies, the hedge fund side, carried about $26 billion of fee-paying assets; credit alone reached about $18 billion of AUM by mid-year. Clients skew institutional: public pensions are about 36% of the base, insurance companies about 17% and corporations about 12%, with roughly 59% of assets sourced from the Americas, 26% from Asia-Pacific and 15% from EMEA.

Full GCMG guide

StepStone Group is a private markets investment firm headquartered in New York that works as an outsourced allocator rather than a traditional buyout shop. Clients hand it capital through separately managed accounts, commingled funds and advisory mandates, and StepStone deploys that money into primary fund commitments, secondaries and co-investments across four asset classes: private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate. It was responsible for approximately $885 billion of total capital as of March 31, 2026, of which roughly $233.3 billion was discretionary assets under management and about $144.0 billion was fee-earning AUM. A large research and data operation, commercialized as the SPI by StepStone platform, sits underneath all of it and covers tens of thousands of funds, managers and portfolio companies.

Full STEP guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• GCMG drivers: The 2028 fee-related earnings doubling target; The shift from fund-of-funds to direct and customized mandates.
• STEP drivers: Fee-earning AUM plus a large undeployed backlog; The private wealth channel.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: The public float is small: only about 58.7 million shares trade freely against roughly 202 million fully exchanged units, a consequence of the Up-C structure left over from the 2020 blank-check listing, so day-to-day liquidity is thin and voting control rests with co-founder and executive chairman Michael Sacks rather than public holders. For STEP, carried interest is genuinely volatile: total performance fees swung to about $1.07 billion in fiscal 2026 from $407.8 million a year earlier, and fiscal Q4 performance fee earnings fell 57% year over year, so quarter-to-quarter GAAP results say little about run-rate economics.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick GCMG if you believe its drivers more; STEP if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the GCMG and STEP guides.

GCMG. The gap between the ~25x trailing and ~12x forward multiple is the whole debate in one number: trailing GAAP earnings are depressed by the Up-C structure's non-controlling interest split and by amortization, while forward estimates assume the 2028 fee-related earnings plan is on track. Yahoo's ~$0.78 billion market cap counts only Class A shares; applying $12.80 to the roughly 202 million fully exchanged units gives about $2.6 billion, and EV/EBITDA on Yahoo's basis is about 7x. Price-to-book of roughly 31x is close to meaningless here because the Up-C structure keeps almost no equity on the Class A balance sheet, so cash-flow and fee-related earnings measures carry the analytical weight. Third quarter 2026 results are expected around November 5, with consensus near $0.21 of adjusted EPS on about $143 million of revenue.

STEP. Trailing GAAP EPS is negative because of the non-cash buy-in charge and carry accounting, so the stock is valued on adjusted earnings, and at ~$42 it trades near ~17x this fiscal year's consensus versus roughly 20x in August 2026. Revenue figures are inflated or depressed by unrealized carried interest from one quarter to the next, which is why management and advisory fees (~$926.5 million in fiscal 2026) and fee-related earnings are the cleaner measures. Fiscal second-quarter results arrive November 5, 2026, with consensus near ~$0.56 of adjusted EPS on ~$325 million of revenue.

Headline figures (approximate, October 2026): GCMG shows revenue (ttm) ~$567 million; Q2 2026 up ~12% year over year, aum / fee-paying aum ~$97 billion and ~$78 billion at June 30, 2026, both up ~13%, fee-related earnings (q2 2026) ~$50 million, up ~21%, at a ~45% margin, adjusted eps (q2 2026 vs estimate) $0.19 vs $0.18; STEP shows revenue (ttm) ~$2.01B, up ~4% year over year in the June 2026 quarter, net income (ttm) ~-$613M GAAP net loss (trailing EPS ~-$7.68), driven by non-cash buy-in compensation, assets under management ~$233.3B as of March 31, 2026, fee-earning aum ~$144.0B as of March 31, 2026.

GCMG and STEP are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined GCMG and STEP exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.