Institutional owners may consider drastic measures as PUMA SE's (ETR:PUM) recent €718m drop adds to long-term losses

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in PUMA implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• A total of 7 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

Every investor in PUMA SE (ETR:PUM) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 46% 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.

And institutional investors saw their holdings value drop by 10% last week. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 33% for shareholders. Also referred to as "smart money", institutions have a lot of sway over how a stock's price moves. As a result, if the decline continues, institutional investors may be pressured to sell PUMA which might hurt individual investors.

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

View our latest analysis for PUMA

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About PUMA?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

PUMA already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 PUMA's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in PUMA. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Financière Pinault SCA with 30% of shares outstanding. With 5.3% and 4.5% of the shares outstanding respectively, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. and BlackRock, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of PUMA

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.

We note our data does not show any board members 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

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 20% 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

It seems that Private Companies own 30%, of the PUMA stock. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for PUMA you should know about.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com