What Percentage Of Compagnie Financière Richemont SA (VTX:CFR) Shares Do Insiders Own?

If you want to know who really controls Compagnie Financière Richemont SA (VTX:CFR), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, 'Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

Compagnie Financière Richemont is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of CHF66b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. 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 Compagnie Financière Richemont.

View our latest analysis for Compagnie Financière Richemont

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Compagnie Financière Richemont?

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.

Compagnie Financière Richemont already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Compagnie Financière Richemont's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Compagnie Financière Richemont. Our data suggests that Johann Rupert, who is also the company's Top Key Executive, holds the most number of shares at 9.6%. When an insider holds a sizeable amount of a company's stock, investors consider it as a positive sign because it suggests that insiders are willing to have their wealth tied up in the future of the company. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 3.0% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 2.3% by the third-largest shareholder.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 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 Compagnie Financière Richemont

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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Compagnie Financière Richemont SA. It is very interesting to see that insiders have a meaningful CHF6.7b stake in this CHF66b business. 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

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 51% of Compagnie Financière Richemont. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Compagnie Financière Richemont better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Compagnie Financière Richemont that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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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