With 81% ownership in American Vanguard Corporation (NYSE:AVD), institutional investors have a lot riding on the business
To get a sense of who is truly in control of American Vanguard Corporation (NYSE:AVD), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 81% stake, institutions 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.
And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 9.6% last week. One-year return to shareholders is currently 36% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of American Vanguard, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for American Vanguard
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About American Vanguard?
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.
American Vanguard 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. 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 American Vanguard's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in American Vanguard. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc. with 15% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.7% and 6.6%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. In addition, we found that Eric Wintemute, the CEO has 3.5% 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 10 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. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.
Insider Ownership Of American Vanguard
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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
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 report that insiders do own shares in American Vanguard Corporation. It has a market capitalization of just US$633m, and insiders have US$40m worth of shares, in their own names. 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-- including retail investors -- own 12% stake in the company, and hence can't 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.
I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.
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.
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