With 40% ownership, Fresenius Medical Care AG (ETR:FME) boasts of strong institutional backing

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Fresenius Medical Care's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• A total of 5 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

If you want to know who really controls Fresenius Medical Care AG (ETR:FME), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 40% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Fresenius Medical Care.

Check out our latest analysis for Fresenius Medical Care

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Fresenius Medical Care?

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 Fresenius Medical Care 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. 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 Fresenius Medical Care's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Fresenius Medical Care is not owned by hedge funds. Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA is currently the largest shareholder, with 32% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.6% by the third-largest shareholder.

Our research also brought to light the fact that roughly 52% of the company is controlled by the top 5 shareholders suggesting that these owners wield significant influence on the business.

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 plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Fresenius Medical Care

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 less than 1% of Fresenius Medical Care AG. As it is a large company, we'd only expect insiders to own a small percentage of it. But it's worth noting that they own €2.8m worth of shares. Arguably recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 28% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Fresenius Medical Care. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 32% of the Fresenius Medical Care shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Fresenius Medical Care better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Fresenius Medical Care 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.