Should You Be Concerned About Cleveland BioLabs Inc’s (NASDAQ:CBLI) Investors?
In this analysis, my focus will be on developing a perspective on Cleveland BioLabs Inc’s (NASDAQ:CBLI) latest ownership structure, a less discussed, but important factor. Ownership structure has been found to have an impact on shareholder returns in both short- and long-term. Since the effect of an active institutional investor with a similar ownership as a passive pension-fund can be vastly different on a company’s corporate governance and accountability of shareholders, investors should take a closer look at CBLI’s shareholder registry.
View our latest analysis for Cleveland BioLabs
Institutional Ownership
Institutional investors transact in large blocks which can influence the momentum of stock prices, at least in the short-term, especially when there is a low level of public shares available on the market to trade. With an institutional ownership of 5.66%, CBLI doesn’t seem too exposed to higher volatility resulting from institutional trading.
Insider Ownership
Another important group of shareholders are company insiders. Insider ownership has to do more with how the company is managed and less to do with the direct impact of the magnitude of shares trading on the market. CBLI insiders hold a significant stake of 58.17% in the company. This level of insider ownership has been found to have a negative impact on companies with consistently low PE ratios (underperformers), while it has been positive in the case of high PE ratio firms (outperformers). Another aspect of insider ownership is to learn about their recent transactions. Insider buying may be a sign of upbeat future expectations, however, selling doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite as insiders may be motivated by their personal financial needs.
General Public Ownership
The general public holds a substantial 36.17% stake in CBLI, making it a highly popular stock among retail investors. With this size of ownership, retail investors can collectively play a role in major company policies that affect shareholders returns, including executive remuneration and the appointment of directors. They can also exercise the power to decline an acquisition or merger that may not improve profitability.
Next Steps:
With a low level of institutional ownership, investors in CBLI need not worry about non-fundamental factors such as ownership structure causing large impact on stock prices. However, ownership structure should not be the only focus of your research when constructing an investment thesis around CBLI. Rather, you should be examining fundamental factors such as the intrinsic valuation, which is a key driver of Cleveland BioLabs’s share price. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
Financial Health: Is CBLI’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.
Past Track Record: Has CBLI been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of CBLI’s historicals for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
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.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
