Masterflex SE's (ETR:MZX) biggest owners are individual investors who got richer after stock soared 12% last week

Key Insights

• Masterflex's significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The top 4 shareholders own 55% of the company
• 28% of Masterflex is held by insiders

If you want to know who really controls Masterflex SE (ETR:MZX), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 42% stake, individual investors 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, individual investors were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 12% gain.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Masterflex

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Masterflex?

Institutional investors often avoid companies that are too small, too illiquid or too risky for their tastes. But it's unusual to see larger companies without any institutional investors.

There are many reasons why a company might not have any institutions on the share registry. It may be hard for institutions to buy large amounts of shares, if liquidity (the amount of shares traded each day) is low. If the company has not needed to raise capital, institutions might lack the opportunity to build a position. It is also possible that fund managers don't own the stock because they aren't convinced it will perform well. Masterflex's earnings and revenue track record (below) may not be compelling to institutional investors -- or they simply might not have looked at the business closely.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Masterflex. Reinhart Zech Von Hymmen is currently the largest shareholder, with 20% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 20% and 7.5%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Masterflex

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.

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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Masterflex SE. It has a market capitalization of just €122m, and insiders have €34m worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 42% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Masterflex. 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.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 30%, of the Masterflex 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Masterflex 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.