Institutions profited after i-80 Gold Corp.'s (TSE:IAU) market cap rose CA$116m last week but retail investors profited the most

Key Insights

• Significant control over i-80 Gold by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 42% ownership
• Insiders have bought recently

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To get a sense of who is truly in control of i-80 Gold Corp. (TSE:IAU), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 54% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Retail investors gained the most after market cap touched CA$1.3b last week, while institutions who own 31% also benefitted.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about i-80 Gold.

View our latest analysis for i-80 Gold

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About i-80 Gold?

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 i-80 Gold 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 i-80 Gold's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Our data indicates that hedge funds own 9.7% of i-80 Gold. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Condire Investors, LLC is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.7% of shares outstanding. With 5.2% and 4.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, Sprott Inc. and Daniel Kaufman are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO Richard Young is the owner of 0.5% of the company's shares.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of i-80 Gold

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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in i-80 Gold Corp.. It has a market capitalization of just CA$1.3b, and insiders have CA$70m worth of shares, in their own names. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 54% of i-80 Gold. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for i-80 Gold that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.