Insiders the biggest winners as Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft's (ETR:BMW) market cap rises to €48b

Key Insights

• Bayerische Motoren Werke's significant insider ownership suggests inherent interests in company's expansion
• 51% of the business is held by the top 5 shareholders
• Institutional ownership in Bayerische Motoren Werke is 30%

If you want to know who really controls Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:BMW), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 36% stake, individual insiders possess the maximum shares in the company. 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, insiders were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 10% gain.

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

See our latest analysis for Bayerische Motoren Werke

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Bayerische Motoren Werke?

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 Bayerische Motoren Werke does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Bayerische Motoren Werke's 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 Bayerische Motoren Werke. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Susanne Klatten with 20% of shares outstanding. With 16% and 8.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, Stefan Quandt and AQTON SE are the second and third largest shareholders.

On looking further, we found that 51% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of the company.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Bayerische Motoren Werke

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft. It has a market capitalization of just €48b, and insiders have €17b worth of shares in their own names. That's quite significant. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 34% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Bayerische Motoren Werke. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Bayerische Motoren Werke better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Bayerische Motoren Werke is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is a bit unpleasant...

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.