Cencosud S.A.'s (SNSE:CENCOSUD) top owners are private companies with 56% stake, while 24% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• Cencosud's significant private companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The largest shareholder of the company is Inversiones Quinchamali Limitada with a 53% stake
• Institutional ownership in Cencosud is 24%

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If you want to know who really controls Cencosud S.A. (SNSE:CENCOSUD), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that private companies own the lion's share in the company with 56% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And institutions on the other hand have a 24% ownership in the company. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones.

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

View our latest analysis for Cencosud

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Cencosud?

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 Cencosud 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Cencosud, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Cencosud. Our data shows that Inversiones Quinchamali Limitada is the largest shareholder with 53% of shares outstanding. This implies that they have majority interest control of the future of the company. Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.8% of common stock, and Estate of Horst Paulmann Kemna holds about 2.6% of the company stock.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Cencosud

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.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members 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

With a 20% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Cencosud. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 56%, of the Cencosud stock. 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 example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Cencosud that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.