Key Insights

• Affinity Bancshares' significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

• The top 25 shareholders own 46% of the company

• Insider ownership in Affinity Bancshares is 20%

A look at the shareholders of Affinity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFBI) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 53% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Individual insiders, on the other hand, account for 20% of the company's stockholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Affinity Bancshares.

View our latest analysis for Affinity Bancshares

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Affinity Bancshares?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Affinity Bancshares. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Affinity Bancshares, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Affinity Bancshares. The company's largest shareholder is Kenneth Lehman, with ownership of 13%. With 8.6% and 7.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, Affinity Bank Employee Stock Ownership Plan and AllianceBernstein L.P. are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Edward Cooney, the CEO has 1.9% of the shares allocated to their name.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.