In This Article:
Key Insights
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First Mid Bancshares' significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
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The top 25 shareholders own 38% of the company
To get a sense of who is truly in control of First Mid Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMBH), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 53% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
And institutions on the other hand have a 38% ownership in the company. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of First Mid Bancshares.
Check out our latest analysis for First Mid Bancshares
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About First Mid Bancshares?
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 First Mid Bancshares does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 First Mid Bancshares' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
Hedge funds don't have many shares in First Mid Bancshares. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 6.8%. With 4.7% and 2.9% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP are the second and third largest shareholders.
On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.
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.