If you want to know who really controls MedAdvisor Limited (ASX:MDR), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said ‘Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
MedAdvisor is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of AU$95m, which means it wouldn’t have the attention of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are not really that prevalent on the share registry. Let’s take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about MedAdvisor.
Check out our latest analysis for MedAdvisor
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About MedAdvisor?
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.
Since institutions own under 5% of MedAdvisor, many may not have spent much time considering the stock. But it’s clear that some have; and they liked it enough to buy in. So if the company itself can improve over time, we may well see more institutional buyers in the future. When multiple institutional investors want to buy shares, we often see a rising share price. The past revenue trajectory (shown below) can be an indication of future growth, but there are no guarantees.
It would appear that 7.4% of MedAdvisor shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. The company’s largest shareholder is HMS Holdings Corp., with ownership of 13%, The second largest shareholder with 11%, is Ebos Ph Pty Ltd, followed by Joshua Swinnerton, with an ownership of 10%. Joshua Swinnerton also happens to hold the title of Member of the Board of Directors.
On further inspection, we found that 55% of the share register is owned by the top 6 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.
Insider Ownership Of MedAdvisor
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.
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.
Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in MedAdvisor Limited. It has a market capitalization of just AU$95m, and insiders have AU$23m worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
With a 28% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over MDR. 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
Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 21%, of the company’s shares. It’s hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.
Public Company Ownership
We can see that public companies hold 15%, of the MDR shares on issue. We can’t be certain, but this is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.
Next Steps:
It’s always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand MedAdvisor better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that MedAdvisor is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those make us uncomfortable…
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.
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.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
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