What Is The Ownership Structure Like For West African Resources Limited (ASX:WAF)?
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The big shareholder groups in West African Resources Limited (ASX:WAF) have power over the company. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.
West African Resources has a market capitalization of AU$1.3b, so we would expect some institutional investors to have noticed the stock. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about West African Resources.
See our latest analysis for West African Resources
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About West African Resources?
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.
West African Resources already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 West African Resources, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in West African Resources. The company's largest shareholder is Van Eck Associates Corporation, with ownership of 13%. With 5.0% and 4.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, L1 Capital Pty. Limited and Sprott Asset Management LP are the second and third largest shareholders. Additionally, the company's CEO Richard Hyde directly holds 1.8% of the total shares outstanding.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 15 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.
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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.