Yahoo Finance What You Need To Know About Avadel Pharmaceuticals plc's (NASDAQ:AVDL) Investor Composition
The big shareholder groups in Avadel Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ:AVDL) have power over the company. 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.
Avadel Pharmaceuticals is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$247m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Avadel Pharmaceuticals.
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What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Avadel Pharmaceuticals?
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.
We can see that Avadel Pharmaceuticals does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Avadel Pharmaceuticals, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. It looks like hedge funds own 9.7% of Avadel Pharmaceuticals shares. That's interesting, because hedge funds can be quite active and activist. Many look for medium term catalysts that will drive the share price higher. The company's largest shareholder is Cowen Inc,Private Banking and Investment Banking Investments, with ownership of 13%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 9.7% and 4.7% of the stock.
We also observed that the top 9 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. 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 Avadel Pharmaceuticals
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
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.
We can see that insiders own shares in Avadel Pharmaceuticals plc. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$3.0m worth of the US$247m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 33% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Avadel Pharmaceuticals better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Avadel Pharmaceuticals (1 is a bit unpleasant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
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.
