Private companies are Heineken N.V.'s (AMS:HEIA) biggest owners and were rewarded after market cap rose by €1.7b last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Heineken by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The largest shareholder of the company is L'Arche Green N.V. with a 51% stake
• Insiders have been selling lately

If you want to know who really controls Heineken N.V. (AMS:HEIA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that private companies own the lion's share in the company with 51% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

As a result, private companies were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 3.4% gain.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Heineken

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Heineken?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that Heineken 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Heineken's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Heineken. L'Arche Green N.V. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 51% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 2.3% and 1.9% of the stock.

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.

Insider Ownership Of Heineken

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our information suggests that Heineken N.V. insiders own under 1% of the company. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. As it is a large company, we'd only expect insiders to own a small percentage of it. But it's worth noting that they own €40m worth of shares. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

With a 26% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Heineken. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 51%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Be aware that Heineken is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.