Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in JB Hi-Fi implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• 49% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders

• Insiders have sold recently

To get a sense of who is truly in control of JB Hi-Fi Limited (ASX:JBH), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 52% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about JB Hi-Fi.

View our latest analysis for JB Hi-Fi

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About JB Hi-Fi?

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 JB Hi-Fi 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. 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 JB Hi-Fi's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in JB Hi-Fi. Australian Super Pty Ltd is currently the company's largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. With 6.0% and 5.8% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and State Street Global Advisors, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.