Do Insiders Own Lots Of Shares In Petrolina (Holdings) Public Ltd (CSE:PHL)?

If you want to know who really controls Petrolina (Holdings) Public Ltd (CSE:PHL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, 'Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

Petrolina (Holdings) is a smaller company with a market capitalization of €88m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have not yet purchased shares. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Petrolina (Holdings).

Check out our latest analysis for Petrolina (Holdings)

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Petrolina (Holdings)?

We don't tend to see institutional investors holding stock of companies that are very risky, thinly traded, or very small. Though we do sometimes see large companies without institutions on the register, it's not particularly common.

There could be various reasons why no institutions own shares in a company. Typically, small, newly listed companies don't attract much attention from fund managers, because it would not be possible for large fund managers to build a meaningful position in the company. Alternatively, there might be something about the company that has kept institutional investors away. Petrolina (Holdings)'s earnings and revenue track record (below) may not be compelling to institutional investors -- or they simply might not have looked at the business closely.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Petrolina (Holdings). Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Ntinos Lefkaritis with 44% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 6.1% of the shares outstanding respectively, Kostakis Lefkaritis and Marios Leukaritis are the second and third largest shareholders. Two of the top three shareholders happen to be Chief Operating Officer and Member of the Board of Directors, respectively. That is, insiders feature higher up in the heirarchy of the company's top shareholders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.

Insider Ownership Of Petrolina (Holdings)

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Petrolina (Holdings) Public Ltd stock. This gives them a lot of power. So they have a €58m stake in this €88m business. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 34% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Petrolina (Holdings). While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

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 instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Petrolina (Holdings) (2 are a bit unpleasant) that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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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