Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores S.A.'s (SNSE:VAPORES) largest shareholders are public companies who were rewarded as market cap surged CL$206b last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores by public companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• Quiñenco S.A. owns 66% of the company
• Ownership research, combined with past performance data can help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores S.A. (SNSE:VAPORES), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 66% to be precise, is public companies. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

As a result, public companies collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit CL$3.7t market cap following a 5.9% gain in the stock.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores. 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. 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 Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Quiñenco S.A. with 66% of shares outstanding. This essentially means that they have extensive influence, if not outright control, over the future of the corporation. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 4.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 1.4% by the third-largest 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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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

With a 24% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores. 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

We can see that public companies hold 66% of the Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores shares on issue. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores 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.