What Type Of Shareholders Make Up Pan African Resources PLC's (LON:PAF) Share Registry?

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Simply Wall St

Sat, May 28, 2022, 3:56 AM 4 min read

If you want to know who really controls Pan African Resources PLC (LON:PAF), 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. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

Pan African Resources is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of UK£384m, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Pan African Resources.

Check out our latest analysis for Pan African Resources

ownership-breakdown — AIM:PAF Ownership Breakdown May 28th 2022

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Pan 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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Pan African Resources. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. 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 Pan African Resources' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

earnings-and-revenue-growth — AIM:PAF Earnings and Revenue Growth May 28th 2022

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Pan African Resources is not owned by hedge funds. Allan Gray Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 25% of shares outstanding. Public Investment Corporation Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and Ninety One UK Limited holds about 5.1% of the company stock.

We did some more digging and found that 6 of the top shareholders account for roughly 53% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Pan African Resources

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our information suggests that Pan African Resources PLC insiders own under 1% of the company. It seems the board members have no more than UK£2.7m worth of shares in the UK£384m company. Many tend to prefer to see a board with bigger shareholdings. A good next step might be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 20% stake in Pan African Resources. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Pan African Resources that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.