Banco Santander-Chile (SNSE:BSANTANDER) surges 8.0%; public companies who own 67% shares profited along with institutions

If you want to know who really controls Banco Santander-Chile (SNSE:BSANTANDER), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 67% stake, public companies possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Public companies gained the most after market cap touched CL$7.0t last week, while institutions who own 18% also benefitted.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Banco Santander-Chile.

See our latest analysis for Banco Santander-Chile

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Banco Santander-Chile?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Banco Santander-Chile. 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 Banco Santander-Chile's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Banco Santander-Chile. Banco Santander, S.A. is currently 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 2.6% and 2.0%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Banco Santander-Chile

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.

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 cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Given we are not picking up on insider ownership, we may have missing data. Therefore, it would be interesting to assess the CEO compensation and tenure, here.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 14% stake in Banco Santander-Chile. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 67% of Banco Santander-Chile stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Banco Santander-Chile better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.