Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in iFAST indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 4 shareholders own 55% of the company
• Insiders have bought recently

A look at the shareholders of iFAST Corporation Ltd. (SGX:AIY) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 36% to be precise, is individual investors. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

While individual investors were the group that reaped the most benefits after last week's 3.4% price gain, insiders also received a 29% cut.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of iFAST, beginning with the chart below.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About iFAST?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

iFAST already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see iFAST's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in iFAST. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Chung Chun Lim with 19% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 17% and 12% of the stock.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. 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 iFAST

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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of iFAST Corporation Ltd.. It has a market capitalization of just S$2.1b, and insiders have S$598m worth of shares in their own names. That's quite significant. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 36% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over iFAST. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 13%, of the iFAST stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand iFAST better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

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.