After buying recently, Regal Partners Limited (ASX:RPL) insiders must be dismayed to see the company's market cap drop to AU$696m

Key Insights

• Significant insider control over Regal Partners implies vested interests in company growth
• 51% of the business is held by the top 5 shareholders
• Insiders have bought recently

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If you want to know who really controls Regal Partners Limited (ASX:RPL), 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 41% to be precise, is individual insiders. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And looking at our data, we can see that insiders have bought shares recently. However, with shares price down 10.0% last week, they must be disappointed.

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

See our latest analysis for Regal Partners

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Regal Partners?

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.

Regal Partners 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. 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 Regal Partners, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Regal Partners. From our data, we infer that the largest shareholder is Philip King (who also holds the title of Senior Key Executive) with 18% of shares outstanding. Its usually considered a good sign when insiders own a significant number of shares in the company, and in this case, we're glad to see a company insider play the role of a key stakeholder. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 13% and 9.6%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Furthermore, CEO Brendan O’Connor is the owner of 2.4% of the company's shares.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 5 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Regal Partners

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 a reasonable proportion of Regal Partners Limited. Insiders own AU$284m worth of shares in the AU$696m company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 24% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Regal Partners. 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

It seems that Private Companies own 22%, of the Regal Partners 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Regal Partners you should be aware of, and 1 of them can't be ignored.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.

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.