Owning 45% shares,institutional owners seem interested in Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBC),

In this article:

Key Insights

  • Institutions' substantial holdings in Southern Missouri Bancorp implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

  • 50% of the business is held by the top 14 shareholders

  • Insiders own 17% of Southern Missouri Bancorp

If you want to know who really controls Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 45% 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. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Southern Missouri Bancorp.

View our latest analysis for Southern Missouri Bancorp

ownership-breakdown
ownership-breakdown

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Southern Missouri Bancorp?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Southern Missouri Bancorp. 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Southern Missouri Bancorp, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

earnings-and-revenue-growth
earnings-and-revenue-growth

It looks like hedge funds own 6.5% of Southern Missouri Bancorp shares. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. FMR LLC is currently the company's largest shareholder with 7.1% of shares outstanding. FJ Capital Management, LLC is the second largest shareholder owning 6.5% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 5.5% of the company stock. In addition, we found that Greg Steffens, the CEO has 2.5% of the shares allocated to their name.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 14 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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 some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of Southern Missouri Bancorp

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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 a reasonable proportion of Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc.. Insiders own US$103m worth of shares in the US$605m company. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 31% 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. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Southern Missouri Bancorp that you should be aware of.

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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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