Verbio SE's (ETR:VBK) largest shareholder, CEO Claus Sauter sees holdings value fall by 9.1% following recent drop

Key Insights

• Significant insider control over Verbio implies vested interests in company growth
• 54% of the business is held by the top 4 shareholders
• 11% of Verbio is held by Institutions

A look at the shareholders of Verbio SE (ETR:VBK) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 64% to be precise, is individual insiders. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As market cap fell to €690m last week, insiders would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

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

View our latest analysis for Verbio

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Verbio?

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 Verbio does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Verbio's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Verbio. The company's CEO Claus Sauter is the largest shareholder with 21% of shares outstanding. With 15% and 10% of the shares outstanding respectively, Bernd Sauter and Pollert Holding GmbH & Co. KG are the second and third largest shareholders. Interestingly, the second-largest shareholder, Bernd Sauter is also Member of Management Board, again, pointing towards strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.

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.

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 Verbio

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.

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own the majority of Verbio SE. This means they can collectively make decisions for the company. Given it has a market cap of €690m, that means they have €438m worth of shares. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish todiscover (for free) if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 15% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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 10%, of the shares on issue. 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:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Verbio (1 doesn't sit too well with us!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.