Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Regis Resources' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

• 50% of the business is held by the top 14 shareholders

• Insiders have been buying lately

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Regis Resources Limited (ASX:RRL), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 59% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

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 delve deeper into each type of owner of Regis Resources, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Regis Resources

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Regis Resources?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

Regis Resources already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Regis Resources, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Regis Resources. Van Eck Associates Corporation is currently the largest shareholder, with 11% of shares outstanding. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP is the second largest shareholder owning 5.0% of common stock, and IPConcept Fund Management SA holds about 4.9% of the company stock.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 14 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.