If you want to know who really controls Pliant Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLRX), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 39% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
Let’s delve deeper into each type of owner of Pliant Therapeutics, beginning with the chart below.
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Pliant Therapeutics?
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.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Pliant Therapeutics. 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. 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 Pliant Therapeutics’ earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
It looks like hedge funds own 6.3% of Pliant Therapeutics 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. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is FMR LLC with 13% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 12% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.4% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Bernard Coulie, the CEO has 1.0% of the shares allocated to their name.
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.
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 Pliant Therapeutics
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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.
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 Pliant Therapeutics, Inc.. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around US$26m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 29% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Pliant Therapeutics. While this group can’t necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
Private Equity Ownership
With a stake of 19%, private equity firms could influence the Pliant Therapeutics board. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and — as the name suggests — don’t invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.
Public Company Ownership
It appears to us that public companies own 4.4% of Pliant Therapeutics. 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:
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we’ve spotted with Pliant Therapeutics (including 1 which is a bit unpleasant) .
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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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