Foran Mining Corporation's (TSE:FOM) market cap touched CA$1.7b last week, benefiting both individual investors who own 57% as well as institutions

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Foran Mining indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 42% ownership
• Institutional ownership in Foran Mining is 30%

Every investor in Foran Mining Corporation (TSE:FOM) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 57% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While individual investors were the group that benefitted the most from last week’s CA$109m market cap gain, institutions too had a 30% share in those profits.

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

View our latest analysis for Foran Mining

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Foran Mining?

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 Foran Mining. 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 Foran Mining's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Foran Mining is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Hamblin Watsa Investment Counsel Ltd. with 11% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 10% and 5.7% of the stock. In addition, we found that Daniel Myerson, the CEO has 1.3% of the shares allocated to their name.

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.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Foran Mining

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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Foran Mining Corporation. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around CA$37m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 57% of Foran Mining. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 10% of Foran Mining. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Foran Mining you should be aware of, and 1 of them 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.