Institutional investors may adopt severe steps after Stratec SE's (ETR:SBS) latest 8.8% drop adds to a year losses

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Stratec's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• 51% of the business is held by the top 6 shareholders
• Insider ownership in Stratec is 31%

If you want to know who really controls Stratec SE (ETR:SBS), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 41% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And institutional investors saw their holdings value drop by 8.8% last week. The recent loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 14% for stockholders, may not sit well with this group of investors. Also referred to as "smart money", institutions have a lot of sway over how a stock's price moves. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Stratec, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

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

View our latest analysis for Stratec

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Stratec?

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.

We can see that Stratec 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 Stratec's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Stratec. Our data shows that Tanja Dinter is the largest shareholder with 9.7% of shares outstanding. Herdor GmbH & Co. KG is the second largest shareholder owning 9.4% of common stock, and Ralf Leistner holds about 9.3% of the company stock.

We also observed that the top 6 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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 Stratec

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Stratec SE. Insiders have a €151m stake in this €487m business. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 19% 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 9.4%, of the Stratec stock. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.