Key Insights
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Significant control over New Found Gold by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
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50% of the business is held by the top 7 shareholders
If you want to know who really controls New Found Gold Corp. (CVE:NFG), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion’s share in the company with 49% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
And public companies on the other hand have a 24% ownership in the company.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of New Found Gold.
View our latest analysis for New Found Gold
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About New Found Gold?
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.
Institutions have a very small stake in New Found Gold. That indicates that the company is on the radar of some funds, but it isn’t particularly popular with professional investors at the moment. If the company is growing earnings, that may indicate that it is just beginning to catch the attention of these deep-pocketed investors. We sometimes see a rising share price when a few big institutions want to buy a certain stock at the same time. The history of earnings and revenue, which you can see below, could be helpful in considering if more institutional investors will want the stock. Of course, there are plenty of other factors to consider, too.
New Found Gold is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Palisades Goldcorp Ltd. with 24% of shares outstanding. With 13% and 6.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, Sprott Mining Inc. and Eric Sprott are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Collin Kettell, the CEO has 2.7% of the shares allocated to their name.
We also observed that the top 7 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
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. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.
Insider Ownership Of New Found Gold
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.
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 most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of New Found Gold Corp.. It has a market capitalization of just CA$841m, and insiders have CA$87m worth of shares in their own names. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 49% stake in New Found Gold. 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
Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 13%, of the company’s shares. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.
Public Company Ownership
Public companies currently own 24% of New Found Gold stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.
Next Steps:
I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Be aware that New Found Gold is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 3 of those are a bit unpleasant…
If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.
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.