Yahoo Finance ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) is a favorite amongst institutional investors who own 87%
Key Insights
Institutions' substantial holdings in ProAssurance implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
A total of 8 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
If you want to know who really controls ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 87% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about ProAssurance.
Check out our latest analysis for ProAssurance
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ProAssurance?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
ProAssurance 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of ProAssurance, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in ProAssurance. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 15%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 12% and 6.4% of the stock.
We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. 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 ProAssurance
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.
We can report that insiders do own shares in ProAssurance Corporation. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$12m worth of the US$979m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 12% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over ProAssurance. 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.
Next Steps:
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.
I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.
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.
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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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