If you want to know who really controls Independent Oil and Gas plc (LON:IOG), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
With a market capitalization of UK£81m, Independent Oil and Gas is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Independent Oil and Gas.
See our latest analysis for Independent Oil and Gas
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Independent Oil and Gas?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
We can see that Independent Oil and Gas does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Independent Oil and Gas' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Independent Oil and Gas. The company's largest shareholder is London Group Plc, with ownership of 30%. Lombard Odier Asset Management (Europe) Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 25% of common stock, and azValor Asset Management SGIIC, S.A.U. holds about 5.1% of the company stock.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 2 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.
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 are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.
Insider Ownership Of Independent Oil and Gas
The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.