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Why Quantum Corporation’s (NYSE:QTM) Ownership Structure Is Important

In this article, I will take a quick look at Quantum Corporation’s (NYSE:QTM) recent ownership structure – an unconventional investing subject, but an important one. 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 QTM’s shareholder registry. All data provided is as of the most recent financial year end.

Check out our latest analysis for Quantum

NYSE:QTM Ownership_summary Jan 11th 18
NYSE:QTM Ownership_summary Jan 11th 18

Institutional Ownership

Institutions account for 54.74% of QTM’s outstanding shares, a significant enough holding to move stock prices if they start buying and selling in large quantities, especially when there are relatively small amounts of 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. Hedge funds, considered active investors, hold a 16.41% stake in the company, which may be the cause of high short-term volatility in the stock price. I am going to further examine QTM’s ownership structure to check how other major shareholders can affect its investment case.

Insider Ownership

Another important group of shareholders are company insiders. Insider ownership has to do more with how the company is managed and less to do with the direct impact of the magnitude of shares trading on the market. Although individuals in QTM hold only a 3.15% stake, it’s a good sign for shareholders as the company’s executives and directors have their incentives directly linked to the company’s performance. 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.

NYSE:QTM Insider_trading Jan 11th 18
NYSE:QTM Insider_trading Jan 11th 18

General Public Ownership

A substantial ownership of 25.69% in QTM 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:

I suggest investors seek some degree of margin of safety due to high institutional ownership in QTM, in particular due to the strong presence of active hedge fund investors. This will allow an investor to reduce the impact of non-fundamental factors, such as volatile block trading impact on their portfolio value. However, ownership structure should not be the only determining factor when you’re building an investment thesis for QTM. Rather, you should be examining fundamental factors such as the intrinsic valuation, which is a key driver of Quantum’s share price. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:

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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