Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Symrise's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

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

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

A look at the shareholders of Symrise AG (ETR:SY1) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 66% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

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

See our latest analysis for Symrise

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Symrise?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Symrise. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Symrise's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Symrise. The company's largest shareholder is Massachusetts Financial Services Company, with ownership of 9.7%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 6.0% and 5.1%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 14 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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.