Who Are The Major Shareholders In Zurich Insurance Group AG (VTX:ZURN)?

Today, I will be analyzing Zurich Insurance Group AG’s (SWX:ZURN) recent ownership structure, an important but not-so-popular subject among individual investors. The impact of a company's ownership structure affects both its short- and long-term performance. The same amount of capital coming from an activist institution and a passive mutual fund has different implications on corporate governance, which is a decisive factor for a long-term investor. It also impacts the trading environment of company shares, which is more of a concern for short-term investors. Therefore, it is beneficial for us to examine ZURN's ownership structure in more detail.

See our latest analysis for Zurich Insurance Group

Institutional Ownership

ZURN's 33.74% institutional ownership seems enough to cause large share price movements in the case of significant share sell-off or acquisitions by institutions, particularly when there is a low level of public shares available on the market to trade. Although ZURN has a high institutional ownership, such stock moves, in the short-term, are more commonly linked to a particular type of active institutional investors – hedge funds. For ZURN shareholders, the potential of this type of share price volatility shouldn't be as concerning as hedge fund ownership is is not significant,indicating few chances of such sudden price moves. While that hardly seems concerning, I will explore further into ZURN's ownership type to find out how it can affect the company’s investment profile.

General Public Ownership

A big stake of 66.26% in ZURN is held by the general public. This size of ownership gives retail investors collective power in deciding on major policy decisions such as executive compensation, appointment of directors and acquisitions of businesses. This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and potential acquisitions. This is a positive sign for an investor who wants to be involved in key decision-making of the company.

Private Company Ownership

Another group of owners that a potential investor in ZURN should consider are private companies, with a stake of 0.0029%. While they invest more often due to strategic interests, an investment can also be driven by capital gains through share price appreciation. However, an ownership of this size may be relatively insignificant, meaning that these shareholders may not have the potential to influence ZURN's business strategy. Thus, investors not need worry too much about the consequences of these holdings.

Next Steps:

The company's high institutional ownership makes margin of safety a very important consideration to existing investors since long bull and bear trends often emerge when these big-ticket investors see a change in long-term potential of the company. This will allow investors to reduce the impact of non-fundamental factors, such as volatile block trading impact on their portfolio value. However, if you are building an investment case for ZURN, ownership structure alone should not dictate your decision to buy or sell the stock. Rather, you should be examining fundamental factors such as the intrinsic valuation, which is a key driver of Zurich Insurance Group’s share price. I highly recommend you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for ZURN’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for ZURN’s outlook.
2. Past Track Record: Has ZURN been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of ZURN's historicals for more clarity.
3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

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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Simply Wall St analyst Simply Wall St and Simply Wall St have no position in any of the companies mentioned. This article 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.