Institutional investors are Vault Minerals Limited's (ASX:VAU) biggest bettors and were rewarded after last week's AU$441m market cap gain

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Vault Minerals' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• A total of 23 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Insiders have been buying lately

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To get a sense of who is truly in control of Vault Minerals Limited (ASX:VAU), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 51% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And last week, institutional investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit AU$5.3b in market cap. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 92%.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Vault Minerals, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Vault Minerals

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Vault Minerals?

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.

We can see that Vault Minerals does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Vault Minerals, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Vault Minerals is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is UBS Asset Management AG, with ownership of 6.0%. The second and third largest shareholders are State Street Global Advisors, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc., with an equal amount of shares to their name at 5.0%.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 23 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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 are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Vault Minerals

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 Vault Minerals Limited. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around AU$65m worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 46% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.