Swiss Prime Site AG's (VTX:SPSN) top owners are retail investors with 52% stake, while 48% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in Swiss Prime Site indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 25 shareholders own 42% of the company
• Institutional ownership in Swiss Prime Site is 48%

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If you want to know who really controls Swiss Prime Site AG (VTX:SPSN), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 52% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And institutions on the other hand have a 48% ownership in the company. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Swiss Prime Site.

View our latest analysis for Swiss Prime Site

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Swiss Prime Site?

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 Swiss Prime Site 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. 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 Swiss Prime Site's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Swiss Prime Site. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is UBS Asset Management AG with 13% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.6% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.2% 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 plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Swiss Prime Site

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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Swiss Prime Site AG in their own names. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own CHF13m worth of shares (at current prices). Arguably recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 52% of Swiss Prime Site shares. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Swiss Prime Site better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Swiss Prime Site is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those can't be ignored...

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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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.