What You Need To Know About Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited's (JSE:AFH) Investor Composition

A look at the shareholders of Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited (JSE:AFH) can tell us which group is most powerful. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of R4.9b, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Alexander Forbes Group Holdings.

See our latest analysis for Alexander Forbes Group Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Alexander Forbes Group Holdings?

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.

Alexander Forbes Group Holdings already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Alexander Forbes Group Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Alexander Forbes Group Holdings. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. Coronation Fund Managers Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 7.0% of common stock, and Public Investment Corporation Limited holds about 5.4% of the company stock.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 22 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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. There is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of Alexander Forbes Group 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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It appears that the board holds about R22m worth of stock. This compares to a market capitalization of R4.9b. Many tend to prefer to see a board with bigger shareholdings. A good next step might be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 45% stake in Alexander Forbes Group Holdings. 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.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 15% of Alexander Forbes Group Holdings. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Alexander Forbes Group Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Alexander Forbes Group Holdings you should be aware of, and 1 of them shouldn't be ignored.

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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