Myer Holdings Limited's (ASX:MYR) largest shareholders are individual investors who were rewarded as market cap surged AU$112m last week

Key Insights

• Myer Holdings' significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The top 6 shareholders own 51% of the company
• 26% of Myer Holdings is held by Institutions

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If you want to know who really controls Myer Holdings Limited (ASX:MYR), 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. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Clearly, individual investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by AU$112m last week.

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

View our latest analysis for Myer Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Myer Holdings?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Myer Holdings. 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 Myer Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Myer Holdings is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that Century Plaza Investments Pty. Ltd. is the largest shareholder with 27% of shares outstanding. Perpetual Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 12% of common stock, and The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds about 4.2% of the company stock.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 6 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Myer Holdings

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Myer Holdings Limited in their own names. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. It has a market capitalization of just AU$1.2b, and the board has only AU$612k worth of shares in their own names. Many investors in smaller companies prefer to see the board more heavily invested. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 47% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Myer Holdings. 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 27%, of the Myer Holdings stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

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 Myer Holdings is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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.