Do Insiders Own Lots Of Shares In Timberland Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSBK)?

A look at the shareholders of Timberland Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSBK) can tell us which group is most powerful. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. 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.

Timberland Bancorp is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$206m, 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 institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Timberland Bancorp.

View our latest analysis for Timberland Bancorp

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Timberland Bancorp?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Timberland Bancorp. 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 Timberland Bancorp's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Timberland Bancorp. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Timberland Bancorp Inc., ESOP with 7.4% of shares outstanding. Dimensional Fund Advisors L.P. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.2% of common stock, and Royce & Associates, LP holds about 6.0% of the company stock. In addition, we found that Michael Sand, the CEO has 2.0% of the shares allocated to his name

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 14 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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. We're not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held.

Insider Ownership Of Timberland Bancorp

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Timberland Bancorp, Inc.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$11m worth of the US$206m 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, with a 33% stake in the company, will not 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.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Timberland Bancorp that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies.

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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