Institutional investors are DO & CO Aktiengesellschaft's (VIE:DOC) biggest bettors and were rewarded after last week's €116m market cap gain

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies DO & CO's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• 50% of the business is held by the top 7 shareholders
• Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

Trump has pledged to "unleash" American oil and gas and these 15 US stocks have developments that are poised to benefit.

To get a sense of who is truly in control of DO & CO Aktiengesellschaft (VIE:DOC), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 37% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 5.7% last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 16% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of DO & CO.

See our latest analysis for DO & CO

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About DO & CO?

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.

DO & CO 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. 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 DO & CO's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

DO & CO is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Attila Dogudan Privatstiftung, with ownership of 30%. With 4.4% and 4.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, Erste Asset Management GmbH and Norges Bank Investment Management are the second and third largest shareholders.

We did some more digging and found that 7 of the top shareholders account for roughly 50% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of DO & CO

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 33% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 30%, of the DO & CO stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand DO & CO better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.