Following a 17% decline over last year, recent gains may please Hugo Boss AG (ETR:BOSS) institutional owners

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Hugo Boss implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• A total of 9 investors have a majority stake in the company with 53% ownership
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

Every investor in Hugo Boss AG (ETR:BOSS) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 44% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Last week's €126m market cap gain would probably be appreciated by institutional investors, especially after a year of 17% losses.

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

View our latest analysis for Hugo Boss

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hugo Boss?

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 Hugo Boss 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Hugo Boss, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Hugo Boss. MASH Holdings Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 20% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 9.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.9% by the third-largest shareholder.

We did some more digging and found that 9 of the top shareholders account for roughly 53% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

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 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 Hugo Boss

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.

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 data cannot confirm that board members are 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-- including retail investors -- own 22% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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

We can see that Private Companies own 35%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the 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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Hugo Boss 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.