Aura Minerals Inc.'s (TSE:ORA) largest shareholders are private companies who were rewarded as market cap surged CA$153m last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Aura Minerals by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 54% of the company is held by a single shareholder (Bergnol Holding Ltd)
• Insiders have been selling lately

A look at the shareholders of Aura Minerals Inc. (TSE:ORA) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are private companies with 54% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, private companies collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit CA$1.5b market cap following a 11% gain in the stock.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Aura Minerals, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Aura Minerals

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Aura Minerals?

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 Aura Minerals. 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 Aura Minerals' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

It would appear that 5.2% of Aura Minerals shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Bergnol Holding Ltd is currently the company's largest shareholder with 54% of shares outstanding. This implies that they have majority interest control of the future of the company. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.1% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Rodrigo Barbosa, the CEO has 1.1% of the shares allocated to their name.

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. 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 Aura Minerals

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 see that insiders own shares in Aura Minerals Inc.. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own CA$85m 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, who are usually individual investors, hold a 23% stake in Aura Minerals. 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 54%, of the company's shares. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

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. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Aura Minerals that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.