Shareholders Should Check If Insiders Own Shares In Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSE:PBH)

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In this analysis, my focus will be on developing a perspective on Premium Brands Holdings Corporation’s (TSE:PBH) latest ownership structure, a less discussed, but important factor. The impact of a company’s ownership structure affects both its short- and long-term performance. Differences in ownership structure of companies can have a profound effect on how management’s incentives are aligned with shareholder returns, and whether they adhere to corporate governance best practices. Although this is an important factor for long-term investors, many investors can also be impacted by institutional presence and their high-volume trading. Therefore, I will take a look at PBH’s shareholders in more detail.

See our latest analysis for Premium Brands Holdings

TSX:PBH Ownership Summary September 6th 18
TSX:PBH Ownership Summary September 6th 18

Institutional Ownership

In PBH’s case, institutional ownership stands at 22.0%, 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. Although PBH has a high institutional ownership, such stock moves, in the short-term, are more commonly linked to a particular type of active institutional investors – hedge funds. For PBH shareholders, the potential of this type of share price volatility shouldn’t be as concerning as hedge fund ownership is is not significant,indicating few chances of such sudden price moves. While that hardly seems concerning, I will explore further into PBH’s ownership type to find out how it can affect the company’s investment profile.

Insider Ownership

I find insiders are an important group of stakeholders, who are directly involved in making key decisions related to the use of capital. In essence, insider ownership is more about the alignment of shareholders’ interests with the management. Although individuals in PBH hold only a 4.4% stake, given PBH is a large-cap company, it is a relatively large amount. This is a good sign for shareholders as the company’s executives and directors have their incentives directly linked to the company’s performance. In addition to this, it may be interesting to look at insider buying and selling activities. Keep in mind that buying may be sign of upbeat future expectations, but selling doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite as the insiders might just be doing it out of their personal financial needs.

General Public Ownership

A substantial ownership of 62.5% in PBH 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.

Private Company Ownership

Another important group of owners for potential investors in PBH are private companies that hold a stake of 11.1% in PBH. These are companies that are mainly invested due to their strategic interests or are incentivized by reaping capital gains on investments their shareholdings. With this size of ownership in PBH, this ownership class can affect the company’s business strategy. As a result, potential investors should further explore the company’s business relations with these companies and find out if they can affect shareholder returns in the long-term.

Next Steps:

PBH’s considerably high level of institutional ownership calls for further analysis into its margin of safety. This will enable shareholders to comfortably invest in the company while avoid getting trapped in a sustained sell-off that is often observed in stocks with this level of institutional participation. However, if you are building an investment case for PBH, ownership structure alone should not dictate your decision to buy or sell the stock. Rather, you should be looking at fundamental drivers such as the intrinsic valuation, which is a key driver of Premium Brands Holdings’s share price. I urge you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:

  1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for PBH’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for PBH’s outlook.

  2. Past Track Record: Has PBH 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 PBH’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 past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

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