Argo Blockchain shareholders: Who owns the most ARB stock?
Shares in UK-based cryptocurrency miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) have lost 92% of their value this year. Bitcoin prices have dropped heavily and shareholders have become concerned about the cost of the company’s investment in its Texas mining facility.
Are you considering trading ARB shares in anticipation of a rebound in the cryptocurrency market? You may be interested in finding out who owns the most Argo stock. The activity of a company’s largest shareholders can have an impact on the share price.
In this article we look at the breakdown of Argo’s share ownership and who owns the most shares of Argo Blockchain.
What is Argo Blockchain?
Argo Blockchain is an enterprise-scale bitcoin miner and smart contract service provider. The company aims to make cryptocurrency mining more “accessible” by offering a subscription service, and focus on using renewable electricity to limit the environmental impact from the growth of blockchain technologies.
Technology entrepreneur Peter Wall, Argo’s CEO, and Mike Edwards, who was executive chairman until January 2020, founded Argo in 2017. Edwards left in 2020 to focus on his role as CEO of Pioneer Media Holdings.
ARB stock was listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in an initial public offering (IPO) in August 2018 valued at £25m ($30.21m). It was the first public listing of a cryptocurrency company on the LSE. The shares were priced at £0.16 each, valuing the company at £47m.
Argo listed 75 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) on the Nasdaq Global Market in September 2021 under the ticker ARBK. The shares were priced at $15, raising $112.5m.
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Who are the biggest Argo Blockchain shareholders?
Argo Blockchain had 477.83 million shares outstanding at the time of writing on 28 November, with the total number increasing by 2.1% over the past year, diluting the value of shareholders’ stakes, according to stock market data service Simply Wall Street.
Individual stock market investors own the largest proportion of the company’s public float at 45.2%, holding more than 216.17 million shares between them. Institutional shareholders of Argo Blockchain account for 44.1% of the stock ownership, holding over 210.75 million shares. Private companies own 9.6%, or 45.75 million shares and company insiders held 4.54 million shares, accounting for 1%.
Argo’s 25 largest shareholders owned less than half of the listed shares, indicating that the company has a large group of small stockholders and none have a majority.
Who are the shareholders of Argo Blockchain with the largest stakes? The Argo Blockchain shareholders with the largest stakes are institutional investors. Let’s look at the top five.
First Investments Holding
The investment vehicle of Australian-Romanian mining businessman Frank Timis, First Investments Holding (FIH) has the single biggest stake among Argo Blockchain major shareholders. FIH holds 40.5 million shares in the company, equivalent to an 8.48% stake.
There has at times been conflict between FIH and Argo’s management. In April 2019, FIH called a shareholder meeting to replace Edwards and executive chairman Jonathan Bixby on Argo’s board. In May of that year, Edwards replaced Bixby as executive chairman and FIH signed an agreement to become Argo’s first enterprise-level mining-as-a-service customer for up to £1m a month.
In July 2019, Matthew Shaw, a corporate adviser and entrepreneur specialising in the technology and cryptocurrency sectors, was appointed as an independent non-executive director.
FIH had held 41.1 million ARB shares in December 2019, according to Argo’s annual report.
HBOS Investment Fund Managers
Part of the UK-based Lloyds Banking Group, HBOS Investment Fund Managers handles mutual funds for clients worldwide and invests in the equity and fixed income markets.
HBOS holds 24.19 million ARB shares, for a 5.06% stake in the company – the third largest of the ARB shareholders.
Amplify Investments
Amplify Investments, a US-based provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), focuses on providing investment products for investors looking for growth, income and risk-managed strategies. The firm held more $3.6bn in assets under management across its ETFs as of 31 October.
Amplify ranks second among Argo Blockchain’s biggest shareholders. The firm holds 22.07 million ARB shares in its Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), according to its schedule of investments dated 31 July.
BLOK is an actively managed ETF that invests at least 80% of its net assets in companies actively involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem, such as Argo Blockchain.
In July 2022, Amplify said that it “took a hard look at our exposure to the stocks in the Crypto mining category. This involves multiple visits to the RIOT Blockchain facility and a visit to the new Argo facility in Dickens County… Bitcoin cannot exist without these companies, so they are an essential part of our pick-and-shovel strategy”.
Toroso Investments
Toroso Asset Management has been a sub-advisor for Amplify’s BLOK ETF, which holds Argo shares as part of its blockchain and crypto investing strategy, since it launched in 2018. Toroso holds 21.47 million ARB shares.
AJ Bell Holdings
The asset management arm of UK-based investing platform A J Bell Holdings is the fifth largest among the Argo Blockchain shareholders. The firm provides a managed portfolio service and investment funds for clients. It holds 16.6mn shares in Argo.
The bottom line
It can be helpful to understand who the largest shareholders in a company are. Large share sales and purchases can have a significant effect on its share price performance. As we have seen, activist investors such as First Investments Holding can not only affect the share price, but influence the management team’s decisions and company strategy.
However, the trading activity of Argo Blockchain shareholders is only a small part of the picture and should not be the main reason you decide to trade the stock. Whether Argo is a suitable investment for you will depend on your investing goals, trading strategy, risk tolerance and the size of your portfolio.
As always, it is important that you do your own research before making any investment or trading decision. And never invest or trade money that you cannot afford to lose.
FAQs
How many Argo Blockchain shares are there?
Argo Blockchain has 477.83 million shares outstanding, according to data from Simply Wall Street and MarketWatch.
How many shareholders does Argo Blockchain have?
There are a relatively large number of shareholders of Argo Blockchain, as the top 25 own around 48% of the company, and individual retail investors account for the largest share of the stock.
Who owns Argo Blockchain company?
Individual retail investors own more than 45% of Argo blockchain’s stock, more than the 44.1% held by institutional investors.
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