Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in Linamar indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy

• 50% of the business is held by the top 16 shareholders

• Recent sales by insiders

If you want to know who really controls Linamar Corporation (TSE:LNR), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 44% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

While insiders who own 34% came under pressure after market cap dropped to CA$3.9b last week,retail investors took the most losses.

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

View our latest analysis for Linamar

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Linamar?

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 Linamar. 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 Linamar's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Linamar. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Linda Hasenfratz with 33% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 3.5% and 2.5% of the stock.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 16 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Linamar

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.