Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in VAT Group implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• The top 25 shareholders own 48% of the company

• Insiders own 10% of VAT Group

A look at the shareholders of VAT Group AG (VTX:VACN) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 47% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 7.4% last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 47% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of VAT Group.

View our latest analysis for VAT Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About VAT Group?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that VAT Group does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. 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 VAT Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in VAT Group. Our data shows that Rudolf Maag is the largest shareholder with 10% of shares outstanding. Capital Research and Management Company is the second largest shareholder owning 6.0% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 5.7% of the company stock.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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.

Insider Ownership Of VAT Group

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.