Institutions profited after Minerva S.A.'s (BVMF:BEEF3) market cap rose R$288m last week but private companies profited the most

Key Insights

• Minerva's significant private companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• A total of 2 investors have a majority stake in the company with 55% ownership
• Institutional ownership in Minerva is 25%

If you want to know who really controls Minerva S.A. (BVMF:BEEF3), 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 55% to be precise, is private companies. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Private companies gained the most after market cap touched R$4.0b last week, while institutions who own 25% also benefitted.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Minerva.

Check out our latest analysis for Minerva

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Minerva?

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.

Minerva already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Minerva's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Minerva. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Co. with 32% of shares outstanding. VDQ Holdings S.A. is the second largest shareholder owning 23% of common stock, and AllianceBernstein L.P. holds about 5.0% of the company stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 2 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

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

Insider Ownership Of Minerva

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.

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 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

With a 20% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Minerva. 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

We can see that Private Companies own 55%, of the shares on issue. 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.

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. Be aware that Minerva is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is potentially serious...

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.

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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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com