Should You Be Concerned About Intermap Technologies Corporation’s (TSX:IMP) Investors?
Today, I will be analyzing Intermap Technologies Corporation’s (TSX:IMP) recent ownership structure, an important but not-so-popular subject among individual investors. 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 IMP’s shareholder registry. All data provided is as of the most recent financial year end.
View our latest analysis for Intermap Technologies
Institutional Ownership
In IMP’s case, institutional ownership stands at 34.83%, significant enough to cause considerable price moves in the case of large institutional transactions, especially when there is a low level of public shares available on the market to trade. However, as not all institutions are alike, such high volatility events, especially in the short-term, have been more frequently linked to active market participants like hedge funds. For shareholders in IMP, sharp price movements may not be a major concern as active hedge funds hold a relatively small stake in the company. Although this doesn’t necessarily lead to high short-term volatility, we should dig deeper into IMP’s ownership structure to find how the remaining owner types can affect its investment profile.
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. IMP insiders hold a not-so-significant 1.74% stake in the company, which somewhat aligns their interests with that of shareholders. However, a higher level of insider ownership has been linked to management executing on high-returning projects instead of expansion projects for the sake of apparent growth. It would also be interesting to check what insiders have been doing with their shareholding recently. Insider buying can be a positive indicator of future performance, but a selling decision can be simply driven by personal financial requirements.
General Public Ownership
A substantial ownership of 63.43% in IMP 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:
Are you a shareholder? IMP’s considerably high level of institutional ownership calls for further analysis into its margin of safety. This will allow investors to reduce the impact of non-fundamental factors, such as volatile block trading impact on their portfolio value. If you’re interested in bolstering your portfolio with new stocks and are looking for ideas, take a look at our free app to see my list of stocks with a strong growth potential.
Are you a potential investor? Ownership structure should not be the only focus of your research when constructing an investment thesis around IMP. Instead, you should be evaluating fundamental factors like the relative valuation of IMP, which is an important driver that determines IMP’s share price. Take a look at our most recent infographic report on IMP for a more in-depth analysis of these factors to help you make a more well-informed investment decision.
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.
