Kuros Biosciences AG's (VTX:KURN) largest shareholders are individual investors who were rewarded as market cap surged CHF39m last week
Simply Wall St
4 min read
Key Insights
Significant control over Kuros Biosciences by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
Every investor in Kuros Biosciences AG (VTX:KURN) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 47% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
As a result, individual investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit CHF99m market cap following a 65% gain in the stock.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Kuros Biosciences.
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Kuros Biosciences?
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 Kuros Biosciences 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 Kuros Biosciences' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
SWX:KURN Earnings and Revenue Growth July 26th 2023
We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Kuros Biosciences. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Optiverder B.V. with 26% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.9% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.9% by the third-largest shareholder.
We did some more digging and found that 7 of the top shareholders account for roughly 52% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.
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. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.
Insider Ownership Of Kuros Biosciences
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Given we are not picking up on insider ownership, we may have missing data. Therefore, it would be interesting to assess the CEO compensation and tenure, here.
General Public Ownership
With a 47% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Kuros Biosciences. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.
Private Company Ownership
It seems that Private Companies own 35%, of the Kuros Biosciences stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.
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.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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