Painful week for individual investors invested in Commerzbank AG (ETR:CBK) after 16% drop, institutions also suffered losses

Key Insights

• Significant control over Commerzbank by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 44% ownership
• 33% of Commerzbank is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Commerzbank AG (ETR:CBK), 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 individual investors with 51% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

While the holdings of individual investors took a hit after last week’s 16% price drop, institutions with their 33% holdings also suffered.

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

View our latest analysis for Commerzbank

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Commerzbank?

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.

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

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Commerzbank. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Financial Market Stabilisation Fund SoFFin with 16% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.2% of common stock, and The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds about 3.5% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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 Commerzbank

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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 51% stake in Commerzbank, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

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 instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Commerzbank that you should be aware of.

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.