Individual investors account for 57% of Mind Gym plc's (LON:MIND) ownership, while institutions account for 33%

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Mind Gym indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy

• A total of 20 investors have a majority stake in the company with 43% ownership

• 33% of Mind Gym is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Mind Gym plc (LON:MIND), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 57% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 33% of the company’s stockholders. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders.

Let’s delve deeper into each type of owner of Mind Gym, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Mind Gym

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Mind Gym?

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 Mind Gym. 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 Mind Gym’s earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Mind Gym is not owned by hedge funds. The company’s largest shareholder is Liontrust Asset Management PLC, with ownership of 12%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 9.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.1% by the third-largest shareholder. Mark Bailey, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of President.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 20 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Mind Gym plc. In their own names, insiders own UK£8.0m worth of stock in the UK£84m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but we usually like to see higher insider holdings. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 57% of Mind Gym shares. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Mind Gym is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about…

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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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