Free Float Employee Held Shares - datatype (NOSHEM)
The percentage of total shares in issue held by company employees, or by those with a substantial position in a company that provides significant voting power at an annual general meeting (typically family members).
NOSHEM is a component of the Datastream free float data set, a comprehensive breakdown of a company’s ownership that uses a 5% holding threshold criteria.
The free float number of shares represents the total amount of share capital freely available to ordinary investors and is expressed as a percentage of total number of shares. The balance of a company’s share capital will be in the form of strategic holdings, considered to be excluded from normal dealing. LSEG Datastream enables strategic holdings analysis by owner type.
Ownership is categorized into the following holding types: Pension Fund, Employee, Government, Investment Company, Cross Company and Other. For a holding to be included in one of these categories and counted against the free float value it must meet or exceed 5% of shares outstanding. These owner types also form the Strategic holdings (NOSHST) measure, anything outside of this is considered Free Float.
A standalone Foreign holding (NOSHFR) measure is also derived using ownership data.
For the owner type compilation rules see Free Float Component Matrix.
Free float is calculated using identified share ownership, it is not an independently researched number. If a major shareholder is not captured, for whatever reason, the free float number will be impacted.
Collected by the LSEG Ownership Group the data is sourced from filings, registrars, annual and interim reports, stock exchanges, official regulatory bodies, third party vendors, company websites, approved news sources and direct contact with company investor relations departments.
See below for the full set of Datastream free float datatypes:
NOSHFF Free Float NOSHCO Free Float Cross Holdings NOSHEM Free Float Employee Holdings NOSHGV Free Float Government Holdings NOSHIC Free Float Investment Company Holdings NOSHOF Free Float Other Holdings NOSHPF Free Float Pension Fund Holdings NOSHST Free Float Strategic Holdings NOSHSA Free Float Strategic Holdings - Active NOSHSP Free Float Strategic Holdings - Passive NOSHFR Free Float Foreign Holdings FFNOSH Free Float Shares OTNOSH Free Float Outstanding Shares MVFF Free Float Market Value
Free float is compiled on a monthly basis, stored as a timeseries on the first weekday on the month. Over 75,000 securities are covered, with histories going back to 1997
The LSEG Ownership Group also publish a free float measure which excludes holdings based on owner type, but without a percentage threshold criteria:
NOSHAF LSEG Ownership Group Free Float NOSHSS LSEG Ownership Group Strategic Holdings AFNOSH LSEG Ownership Group Free Float Shares SSNOSH LSEG Ownership Group Strategic Shares