ATCO Ltd.'s (TSE:ACO.X) biggest owners are individual investors who got richer after stock soared 3.4% last week

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in ATCO indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 8 investors have a majority stake in the company with 51% ownership
• 24% of ATCO is held by Institutions

A look at the shareholders of ATCO Ltd. (TSE:ACO.X) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 41% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, individual investors were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 3.4% gain.

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

View our latest analysis for ATCO

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ATCO?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that ATCO does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at ATCO's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in ATCO. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Sentgraf Enterprises Ltd. with 34% of shares outstanding. RBC Global Asset Management Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.3% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 2.6% of the company stock. In addition, we found that Nancy Southern, the CEO has 0.6% of the shares allocated to their name.

We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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 ATCO

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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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 some shares in ATCO Ltd.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth CA$54m. Most would see this as a real positive. It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 41% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over ATCO. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 34%, of the shares on issue. 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:

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. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for ATCO that you should be aware of.

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.