What Type Of Shareholders Own The Most Number of Gofore Oyj (HEL:GOFORE) Shares?

If you want to know who really controls Gofore Oyj (HEL:GOFORE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Gofore Oyj is a smaller company with a market capitalization of €197m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Gofore Oyj.

Check out our latest analysis for Gofore Oyj

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Gofore Oyj?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Gofore Oyj 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Gofore Oyj's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Gofore Oyj. From our data, we infer that the largest shareholder is Timo Bruns (who also holds the title of Senior Key Executive) with 13% of shares outstanding. Its usually considered a good sign when insiders own a significant number of shares in the company, and in this case, we're glad to see a company insider play the role of a key stakeholder. The second and third largest shareholders are Mika Varjus and Petteri Venola, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 13%. In addition, we found that Mikael Nylund, the CEO has 1.7% of the shares allocated to his name

On looking further, we found that 56% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in 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. There is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of Gofore Oyj

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

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Gofore Oyj stock. This gives them a lot of power. Given it has a market cap of €197m, that means they have €127m worth of shares. 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 13% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Gofore Oyj. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Gofore Oyj better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Gofore Oyj you should know about.

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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