Institutional investors must be pleased after a 5.0% gain last week that adds to Dürr Aktiengesellschaft's (ETR:DUE) one-year returns

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Dürr's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• The top 10 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

If you want to know who really controls Dürr Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:DUE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 41% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Last week’s 5.0% gain means that institutional investors were on the positive end of the spectrum even as the company has shown strong longer-term trends. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 7.7%.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Dürr.

View our latest analysis for Dürr

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Dürr?

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.

We can see that Dürr 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. 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 Dürr's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Dürr is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Heinz Dürr GmbH with 26% of shares outstanding. Heinz und Heide Dürr-Stiftung GmbH, Endowment Arm is the second largest shareholder owning 3.5% of common stock, and Union Asset Management Holding AG holds about 3.0% of the company stock.

We also observed that the top 10 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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 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 Dürr

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.

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.

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 33% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Dürr. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 26%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Dürr better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Dürr .

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.