What Type Of Shareholders Make Up Cosan S.A.'s (BVMF:CSAN3) Share Registry?

Every investor in Cosan S.A. (BVMF:CSAN3) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

Cosan has a market capitalization of R$29b, so it's too big to fly under the radar. We'd expect to see both institutions and retail investors owning a portion of the company. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Cosan.

View our latest analysis for Cosan

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Cosan?

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.

We can see that Cosan does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Cosan, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Cosan is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that Cosan Limited is the largest shareholder with 67% of shares outstanding. This implies that they have majority interest control of the future of the company. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 2.2% and 1.5%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

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 Cosan

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 data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Not all jurisdictions have the same rules around disclosing insider ownership, and it is possible we have missed something, here. So you can click here learn more about the CEO.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 15% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 67% of the Cosan shares on issue. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.

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 Cosan is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is a bit unpleasant...

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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