flatexDEGIRO AG's (ETR:FTK) high institutional ownership speaks for itself as stock continues to impress, up 4.7% over last week

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in flatexDEGIRO implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• A total of 10 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

To get a sense of who is truly in control of flatexDEGIRO AG (ETR:FTK), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 59% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained €55m in market cap last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 77% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

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

View our latest analysis for flatexDEGIRO

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About flatexDEGIRO?

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.

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

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. It looks like hedge funds own 5.2% of flatexDEGIRO shares. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. GfBk Gesellschaft für Börsenkommunikation mbH is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.0% by the third-largest shareholder.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 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 flatexDEGIRO

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

We can see that insiders own shares in flatexDEGIRO AG. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around €18m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 19% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over flatexDEGIRO. 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 15%, 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand flatexDEGIRO better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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.