Retail investors in Guardian Capital Group Limited (TSE:GCG.A) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 13% last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Guardian Capital Group by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 9 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Recent sales by insiders

Every investor in Guardian Capital Group Limited (TSE:GCG.A) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 46% to be precise, is retail investors. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Clearly, retail investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by CA$129m last week.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Guardian Capital Group, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Guardian Capital Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Guardian Capital Group?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Guardian Capital Group 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. 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 Guardian Capital Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Guardian Capital Group. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Minic Investments Limited with 26% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 10% and 2.9% of the stock. Additionally, the company's CEO George Mavroudis directly holds 1.5% of the total shares outstanding.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 9 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 Guardian Capital Group

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Guardian Capital Group Limited. It has a market capitalization of just CA$1.1b, and insiders have CA$59m worth of shares, in their own names. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 46% stake in Guardian Capital Group. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 26%, 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Guardian Capital Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Guardian Capital Group (at least 1 which shouldn't be ignored) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

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.

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

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.