Pan American Silver Corp.'s (TSE:PAAS) recent 4.5% pullback adds to one-year year losses, institutional owners may take drastic measures

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Pan American Silver's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 25 shareholders own 41% of the company
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

Every investor in Pan American Silver Corp. (TSE:PAAS) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 59% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, institutional investors endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by CA$343m. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 18% for shareholders. Institutions or "liquidity providers" control large sums of money and therefore, these types of investors usually have a lot of influence over stock price movements. As a result, if the decline continues, institutional investors may be pressured to sell Pan American Silver which might hurt individual investors.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Pan American Silver, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Pan American Silver

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Pan American Silver?

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 Pan American Silver does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Pan American Silver, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Pan American Silver. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Van Eck Associates Corporation with 11% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 3.5% and 3.0% of the stock.

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 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Pan American Silver

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Pan American Silver Corp.. Keep in mind that it's a big company, and the insiders own CA$13m worth of shares. The absolute value might be more important than the proportional share. Arguably, recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 41% stake in Pan American Silver. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Pan American Silver better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Pan American Silver that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.