With 64% ownership of the shares, WashTec AG (ETR:WSU) is heavily dominated by institutional owners

In This Article:

Key Insights

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

  • A total of 7 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership

  • Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

A look at the shareholders of WashTec AG (ETR:WSU) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 64% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

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

See our latest analysis for WashTec

ownership-breakdown
ownership-breakdown

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About WashTec?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in WashTec. 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 WashTec, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

earnings-and-revenue-growth
earnings-and-revenue-growth

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in WashTec. The company's largest shareholder is Alantra Eqmc Asset Management, Sgiic, S.A, with ownership of 15%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 9.6% and 6.2%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

We also observed that the top 7 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.