Yahoo Finance Should You Be Concerned About OZ Minerals Limited’s (ASX:OZL) Shareholders?
I am going to take a deep dive into OZ Minerals Limited’s (ASX:OZL) most recent ownership structure, not a frequent subject of discussion among individual investors. A company’s ownership structure is often linked to its share performance in both the long- and short-term. Since the effect of an active institutional investor with a similar ownership as a passive pension-fund can be vastly different on a company’s corporate governance and accountability of shareholders, investors should take a closer look at OZL’s shareholder registry.
View our latest analysis for OZ Minerals
Institutional Ownership
Institutions account for 46.03% of OZL’s outstanding shares, a significant enough holding to move stock prices if they start buying and selling in large quantities, especially when there are relatively small amounts of shares available on the market to trade. These moves, at least in the short-term, are generally observed in an institutional ownership mix comprising of active stock pickers, in particular levered hedge funds, which can cause large price swings. For OZL shareholders, the potential of this type of share price volatility shouldn’t be as concerning as hedge fund ownership is is not significant,indicating few chances of such sudden price moves. While that hardly seems concerning, I will explore further into OZL’s ownership type to find out how it can affect the company’s investment profile.
Insider Ownership
I find insiders are an important group of stakeholders, who are directly involved in making key decisions related to the use of capital. In essence, insider ownership is more about the alignment of shareholders’ interests with the management. A stake of less than 1% in OZL is relatively small, though at least there is still some alignment of interest with shareholders. A higher level of insider ownership has been found to reflect the choosing of projects with higher return on investments compared to lower returning projects for the sake of expansion. In addition to this, it may be interesting to look at insider buying and selling activities. Keep in mind that buying may be sign of upbeat future expectations, but selling doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite as the insiders might just be doing it out of their personal financial needs.
General Public Ownership
The general public holds a substantial 50.22% stake in OZL, making it a highly popular stock among retail investors. This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and potential acquisitions. This is a positive sign for an investor who wants to be involved in key decision-making of the company.
Private Company Ownership
Another group of owners that a potential investor in OZL should consider are private companies, with a stake of 2.85%. While they invest more often due to strategic interests, an investment can also be driven by capital gains through share price appreciation. However, an ownership of this size may be relatively insignificant, meaning that these shareholders may not have the potential to influence OZL’s business strategy. Thus, investors not need worry too much about the consequences of these holdings.
Next Steps:
The company’s high institutional ownership makes margin of safety a very important consideration to existing investors since long bull and bear trends often emerge when these big-ticket investors see a change in long-term potential of the company. This is to avoid getting trapped in a sustained sell-off that is often observed in stocks with this level of institutional participation. However, ownership structure should not be the only determining factor when you’re building an investment thesis for OZL. Rather, you should be looking at fundamental drivers such as OZ Minerals’s past track record and financial health. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for OZL’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for OZL’s outlook.
Past Track Record: Has OZL been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of OZL’s historicals for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
