Yahoo Finance Individual investors account for 40% of Alumina Limited's (ASX:AWC) ownership, while institutions account for 40%
If you want to know who really controls Alumina Limited (ASX:AWC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 40% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
Meanwhile, institutions make up 40% of the company’s shareholders. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Alumina.
See our latest analysis for Alumina
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Alumina?
Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.
Alumina already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Alumina's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Hedge funds don't have many shares in Alumina. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Orbis Investment Management Limited with 15% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 11% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 7.9% by the third-largest shareholder.
We did some more digging and found that 7 of the top shareholders account for roughly 51% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.
While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.
Insider Ownership Of Alumina
The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
Our information suggests that Alumina Limited insiders own under 1% of the company. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. Keep in mind that it's a big company, and the insiders own AU$20m worth of shares. The absolute value might be more important than the proportional share. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 40% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Alumina. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
Private Company Ownership
It seems that Private Companies own 7.9%, of the Alumina stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.
Public Company Ownership
We can see that public companies hold 11% of the Alumina shares on issue. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.
Next Steps:
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Alumina (of which 1 is concerning!) you should know about.
Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
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.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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