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Who Are VersaPay Corporation’s (CVE:VPY) Major Shareholders?

Today, I will be analyzing VersaPay Corporation’s (CVE:VPY) recent ownership structure, an important but not-so-popular subject among individual investors. Ownership structure of a company has been found to affect share performance over time. Differences in ownership structure of companies can have a profound effect on how management’s incentives are aligned with shareholder returns, and whether they adhere to corporate governance best practices. Although this is an important factor for long-term investors, many investors can also be impacted by institutional presence and their high-volume trading. Now I will analyze VPY’s shareholder registry in more detail.

See our latest analysis for VersaPay

TSXV:VPY Ownership Summary August 29th 18
TSXV:VPY Ownership Summary August 29th 18

Institutional Ownership

In VPY’s case, institutional ownership stands at 24.0%, significant enough to cause considerable price moves in the case of large institutional transactions, especially when there is a low level of public shares available on the market to trade. However, as not all institutions are alike, such high volatility events, especially in the short-term, have been more frequently linked to active market participants like hedge funds. For shareholders in VPY, sharp price movements may not be a major concern as active hedge funds hold a relatively small stake in the company. Although this doesn’t necessarily lead to high short-term volatility, we should dig deeper into VPY’s ownership structure to find how the remaining owner types can affect its investment profile.

Insider Ownership

Insiders form a group of important ownership types as they manage the company’s operations and decide the best use of capital. Insider ownership has been linked to better alignment between management and shareholders. Although individuals in VPY hold only a 3.6% stake, it’s a good sign for shareholders as the company’s executives and directors have their incentives directly linked to the company’s performance. I will also like to check what insiders have been doing recently with their holdings. Insider buying may be a sign of upbeat future expectations, however, selling doesn’t necessarily mean the opposite as insiders may be motivated by their personal financial needs.

General Public Ownership

A substantial ownership of 72.4% in VPY is held by the general public. This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and potential acquisitions. This is a positive sign for an investor who wants to be involved in key decision-making of the company.

Next Steps:

The company’s high institutional ownership makes margin of safety a very important consideration to existing investors since long bull and bear trends often emerge when these big-ticket investors see a change in long-term potential of the company. This will allow investors to reduce the impact of non-fundamental factors, such as volatile block trading impact on their portfolio value. However, if you are building an investment case for VPY, ownership structure alone should not dictate your decision to buy or sell the stock. Rather, you should be examining fundamental factors such as VersaPay’s past track record and financial health. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:

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  1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for VPY’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for VPY’s outlook.

  2. Past Track Record: Has VPY been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of VPY’s historicals for more clarity.

  3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

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.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.