Key Insights

• Significant control over First Mid Bancshares by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions

• 40% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders

• Recent sales by insiders

Every investor in First Mid Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMBH) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 49% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 39% of the company's stockholders. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders.

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

Check out our latest analysis for First Mid Bancshares

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About First Mid Bancshares?

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.

First Mid Bancshares 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. 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 First Mid Bancshares' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in First Mid Bancshares. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 5.9% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 4.4% and 3.9% of the stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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 plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.