Lakeland Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:LKFN) is a favorite amongst institutional investors who own 83%
Key Insights
Significantly high institutional ownership implies Lakeland Financial's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
The top 9 shareholders own 51% of the company
Every investor in Lakeland Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:LKFN) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 83% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Lakeland Financial.
See our latest analysis for Lakeland Financial
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Lakeland Financial?
Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.
We can see that Lakeland Financial does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. 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 Lakeland Financial's 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. Lakeland Financial is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.3% and 6.4%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. In addition, we found that David Findlay, the CEO has 0.9% 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 9 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 Lakeland Financial
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Lakeland Financial Corporation. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$57m. Most would see this as a real positive. It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 13% stake in Lakeland Financial. 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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Lakeland Financial (of which 1 is a bit concerning!) you should know about.
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.
