Painful week for individual investors invested in ARB Corporation Limited (ASX:ARB) after 5.5% drop, institutions also suffered losses

If you want to know who really controls ARB Corporation Limited (ASX:ARB), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 56% to be precise, is individual investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While institutions who own 34% came under pressure after market cap dropped to AU$2.6b last week,individual investors took the most losses.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of ARB, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for ARB

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ARB?

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.

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

ARB is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Roger Brown, with ownership of 6.0%. With 4.5% and 2.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Formax Pty Ltd are the second and third largest shareholders.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where 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.

Insider Ownership Of ARB

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in ARB Corporation Limited. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around AU$188m worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 56% stake in ARB, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for ARB that you should be aware of.

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.