Is Supply@ME Capital plc's (LON:SYME) Shareholder Ownership Skewed Towards Insiders?

The big shareholder groups in Supply@ME Capital plc (LON:SYME) have power over the company. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. 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.

Supply@ME Capital is a smaller company with a market capitalization of UK£167m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Supply@ME Capital.

View our latest analysis for Supply@ME Capital

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Supply@ME Capital?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Supply@ME Capital. 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 Supply@ME Capital's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Supply@ME Capital. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the AvantGarde Group S.p.A. with 39% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 9.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.0% by the third-largest shareholder.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Supply@ME Capital

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.

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Supply@ME Capital plc. In their own names, insiders own UK£11m worth of stock in the UK£167m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 22% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 9.5% stake in Supply@ME Capital. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 39%, of the shares on issue. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Supply@ME Capital better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Supply@ME Capital (including 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) .

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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