Blackline Safety Corp.'s (TSE:BLN) largest shareholders are retail investors who were rewarded as market cap surged CA$56m last week

Key Insights

• Blackline Safety's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The top 7 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Insiders have been buying lately

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A look at the shareholders of Blackline Safety Corp. (TSE:BLN) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 38% to be precise, is retail investors. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

As a result, retail investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit CA$579m market cap following a 10% gain in the stock.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Blackline Safety

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Blackline Safety?

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.

Blackline Safety already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Blackline Safety's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Our data indicates that hedge funds own 8.9% of Blackline Safety. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. The company's largest shareholder is DAK Capital Inc, with ownership of 26%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 8.9% and 4.4%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Furthermore, CEO Cody Slater is the owner of 2.2% of the company's shares.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Blackline Safety

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

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 Blackline Safety Corp.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own CA$26m worth of the CA$579m company. 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-- including retail investors -- own 38% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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

We can see that Private Companies own 26%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Blackline Safety better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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.