Argo Blockchain Shareholders | Who owns the most shares in Argo Blockchain?

by Arthur · November 28, 2022

Argo Blockchain Shareholders: Who Owns the Most ARB Shares? Photo: rafapress / Shutterstock

Shares in UK-based cryptocurrency miners Argo Blockchain (ARB) has lost 92% of its value this year. Bitcoin prices have fallen sharply and shareholders have become concerned about the cost of the company’s investment in the Texas mining facility.

Are you considering trading ARB shares in anticipation of an upswing in the cryptocurrency market? You may be interested to find out who owns the most Argo shares. The activity of a company’s largest shareholders can have an impact on the share price.

In this article, we look at the distribution of Argo’s share ownership and who owns the most shares in Argo Blockchain.

Table of Contents

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 focuses on using renewable electricity to limit the environmental impact of 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 shares were listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in an initial public offering (IPO) in August 2018 at a value of £25 million ($30.21 million). 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 (ADS) on the Nasdaq Global Market in September 2021 under the ticker ARBK. The shares were priced at $15, which raised $112.5 million.

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Who are the largest Argo Blockchain shareholders?

Argo Blockchain had 477.83 million shares outstanding at the time of writing on Nov. 28, with the total up 2.1% over the past year, diluting the value of shareholders’ holdings, according to the exchange data service. Only Wall Street.

Individual stock market investors own the largest share of the company’s public float at 45.2%, holding more than 216.17 million shares between them. Institutional shareholders in Argo Blockchain account for 44.1% of the share ownership, and hold over 210.75 million shares. Private companies own 9.6%, or 45.75 million shares, and company insiders held 4.54 million shares, equivalent to 1%.

Argo’s 25 largest shareholders owned less than half of the listed shares, indicating that the company has a large group of small shareholders and no one has a majority.

Who are the shareholders in Argo Blockchain with the largest stake? The largest Argo Blockchain shareholders 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 largest stake among the main shareholders in Argo Blockchain. FIH owns 40.5 million shares in the company, corresponding to an ownership stake of 8.48%.

At times there has 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 a deal to become Argo’s first enterprise mining-as-a-service customer for up to £1 million a month.

“We have listened to shareholders and look forward to increased engagement with them going forward,” Edwards said in announcing the deal.

In July 2019, Matthew Shaw, a business advisor and entrepreneur specializing in the technology and cryptocurrency sectors, was appointed as an independent non-executive director.

FIH had 41.1 million ARB shares in December 2019, according to Argos’ annual report.

HBOS Investment Fund Managers

HBOS Investment Fund Managers is part of the UK-based Lloyds Banking Group and manages mutual funds for clients worldwide and invests in the equity and fixed income markets.

HBOS owns 24.19 million ARB shares, for a 5.06% stake in the company – the third largest of the ARB shareholders.

Strengthen investments

Amplify Investments, a US-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider, focuses on providing investment products to investors looking for growth, income and risk-managed strategies. The company had more than $3.6 billion in assets under management across its ETFs as of Oct. 31.

Amplify is number two among Argo Blockchain’s largest shareholders. The firm holds 22.07 million ARB shares in the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), according to the investment plan dated July 31.

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 they “took a hard look at our exposure to the stocks in the Crypto mining category. This involves several 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 important part of our pick and drop strategy.

Toroso Investments

Toroso Asset Management has been a sub-adviser for Amplify’s BLOK ETF, which holds Argo shares as part of its blockchain and crypto investment strategy, since it launched in 2018. Toroso holds 21.47 million ARB shares.

AJ Bell Holdings

The asset management arm of UK investment platform AJ Bell Holdings is the fifth largest among Argo Blockchain shareholders. The firm offers a managed portfolio service and investment funds for clients. It has 16.6 million shares in Argo.

The bottom line

It can be useful to understand who the largest shareholders in a company are. Large share sales and purchases can have a significant effect on share price developments. As we have seen, activist investors like First Investments Holding can not only influence 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 investment objectives, 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.

Common questions

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 is a relatively large number of shareholders in Argo Blockchain, as the top 25 own about 48% of the company, and individual retail investors account for the largest share of the stock.