Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in Seabridge Gold indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• 38% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders
• Recent purchases by insiders

If you want to know who really controls Seabridge Gold Inc. (TSE:SEA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 52% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While retail investors were the group that reaped the most benefits after last week’s 5.7% price gain, institutions also received a 40% cut.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Seabridge Gold.

Check out our latest analysis for Seabridge Gold

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Seabridge 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.

Seabridge Gold already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Seabridge Gold, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Seabridge Gold is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Pan Atlantic Bank and Trust Limited, Asset Management Arm, with ownership of 6.2%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.0% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.5% by the third-largest shareholder. Additionally, the company's CEO Rudi Fronk directly holds 1.2% of the total shares outstanding.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Seabridge Gold

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in Seabridge Gold 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 CA$39m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 52% of Seabridge Gold. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 5.0%, of the Seabridge Gold 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:

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. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Seabridge Gold (2 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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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.