Should You Be Concerned About Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc’s (NASDAQ:CYCC) Shareholders?

I am going to take a deep dive into Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals Inc’s (NASDAQ:CYCC) most recent ownership structure, not a frequent subject of discussion among individual investors. When it comes to ownership structure of a company, the impact has been observed in both the long-and short-term performance of shares. 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 CYCC’s shareholder registry. All data provided is as of the most recent financial year end.

View our latest analysis for Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals

NasdaqCM:CYCC Ownership_summary Feb 5th 18
NasdaqCM:CYCC Ownership_summary Feb 5th 18

Institutional Ownership

Institutional investors are one of the largest group of market participants and their buy-sell decisions on a company’s stock can significantly impact prices, more so, when there are relatively small amounts of shares available on the market to trade. With an institutional ownership of 7.01%, CYCC doesn’t seem too exposed to higher volatility resulting from institutional trading. Low coverage stocks like CYCC tend to be favourite picks of legendary investor Peter Lynch, who used to cash in on the rally supported by institutional buying as the stock gained popularity.

Insider Ownership

Insiders form another group of important ownership types as they manage the company’s operations and decide the best use of capital. Insider ownership has been linked to better alignment between management and shareholders. 19.42% ownership of CYCC insiders is large enough to make an impact on shareholder returns. In general, this level of insider ownership has negatively affected underperforming (consistently low PE ratio) companies and positively affected the companies that outperform (consistently high PE ratio). It’s also interesting to learn what CYCC insiders have been doing with their shareholdings lately. 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

A substantial ownership of 73.57% in CYCC is held by the general public. 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.

What this means for you:

Institutional ownership level and composition in CYCC is not high nor active enough to significantly impact its investment thesis. However, ownership structure should not be the only determining factor when you’re building an investment thesis for CYCC. Instead, you should be evaluating company-specific factors such as the intrinsic valuation, which is a key driver of Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals’s share price. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:

  • 1. Financial Health: Is CYCC’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.

  • 2. Past Track Record: Has CYCC 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 CYCC’s historicals for more clarity.

  • 3. 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.

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