What Kind Of Shareholders Hold The Majority In Super Retail Group Limited's (ASX:SUL) Shares?

If you want to know who really controls Super Retail Group Limited (ASX:SUL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

With a market capitalization of AU$2.6b, Super Retail Group is a decent size, so it is probably on the radar of institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Super Retail Group.

See our latest analysis for Super Retail Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Super Retail Group?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Super Retail Group. 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Super Retail Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Super Retail Group is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that Reginald Rowe is the largest shareholder with 30% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 6.3% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.0% by the third-largest shareholder.

On looking further, we found that 51% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of the company.

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 Super Retail Group

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Super Retail Group Limited. It has a market capitalization of just AU$2.6b, and insiders have AU$801m worth of shares in their own names. That's quite significant. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 25% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Super Retail Group. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Super Retail Group better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Super Retail Group that you should be aware of before investing here.

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. 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.
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