How Much Of SIMONA Aktiengesellschaft (FRA:SIM) Do Insiders Own?

If you want to know who really controls SIMONA Aktiengesellschaft (FRA:SIM), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

With a market capitalization of €298m, SIMONA is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about SIMONA.

See our latest analysis for SIMONA

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About SIMONA?

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.

SIMONA 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. 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 SIMONA'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 SIMONA. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Wolfgang Bürkle with 31% of shares outstanding. With 15% and 12% of the shares outstanding respectively, Kreissparkasse Biberach GmbH, Asset Management Arm and Dirk Möller are the second and third largest shareholders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of SIMONA

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.

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.

Our information suggests that insiders own more than half of SIMONA Aktiengesellschaft. This gives them effective control of the company. Given it has a market cap of €298m, that means they have €191m worth of shares. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 11% stake in SIMONA. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 10.0%, of the company's shares. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand SIMONA better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for SIMONA that you should be aware of.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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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