Aristocrat Leisure Limited's (ASX:ALL) top owners are individual investors with 47% stake, while 41% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• Significant control over Aristocrat Leisure by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 25 shareholders own 46% of the company
• 41% of Aristocrat Leisure is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX:ALL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 47% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Meanwhile, institutions make up 41% of the company’s shareholders. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies.

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

See our latest analysis for Aristocrat Leisure

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Aristocrat Leisure?

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.

Aristocrat Leisure already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Aristocrat Leisure, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Aristocrat Leisure. The company's largest shareholder is Australian Super Pty Ltd, with ownership of 7.1%. State Street Global Advisors, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 6.4% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.1% of the company stock.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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.

Insider Ownership Of Aristocrat Leisure

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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Aristocrat Leisure Limited in their own names. We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. 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 AU$71m 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 47% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Aristocrat Leisure. 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 12%, of the company's shares. 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.

I always like to check for a history of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart of historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.