With 52% ownership of the shares, Compass Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMPX) is heavily dominated by institutional owners
Key Insights
Significantly high institutional ownership implies Compass Therapeutics' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
51% of the business is held by the top 7 shareholders
Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
Every investor in Compass Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMPX) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 52% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Compass Therapeutics.
Check out our latest analysis for Compass Therapeutics
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Compass Therapeutics?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
Compass Therapeutics already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Compass Therapeutics' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. It looks like hedge funds own 7.8% of Compass Therapeutics shares. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is OrbiMed Advisors LLC with 18% of shares outstanding. With 7.8% and 6.1% of the shares outstanding respectively, Adage Capital Management, L.P. and Commander Aggregator, Lp are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Vered Bisker-Leib, the CEO has 0.6% of the shares allocated to their name.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of Compass Therapeutics
The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.
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.
We can see that insiders own shares in Compass Therapeutics, Inc.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$12m worth of the US$255m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 18% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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.
Private Equity Ownership
With an ownership of 18%, private equity firms are in a position to play a role in shaping corporate strategy with a focus on value creation. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.
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 Compass Therapeutics is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those doesn't sit too well with us...
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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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
