Painful week for retail investors invested in Prio S.A. (BVMF:PRIO3) after 5.3% drop, institutions also suffered losses

Key Insights

• Significant control over Prio by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 25 shareholders own 42% of the company
• Institutions own 47% of Prio

A look at the shareholders of Prio S.A. (BVMF:PRIO3) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 50% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

While institutions, who own 47% shares weren’t spared from last week’s R$2.2b market cap drop, retail investors as a group suffered the maximum losses

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Prio.

View our latest analysis for Prio

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Prio?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Prio. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Prio's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Prio. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Credit Suisse, Investment Banking and Securities Investments with 7.6% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 5.7% and 5.4% of the stock.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Prio

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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 data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Given we are not picking up on insider ownership, we may have missing data. Therefore, it would be interesting to assess the CEO compensation and tenure, here.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 50% stake in Prio. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 3.8%, of the shares on issue. 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.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Prio (including 1 which is significant) .

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.