Both retail investors who control a good portion of Deutsche Post AG (ETR:DHL) along with institutions must be dismayed after last week's 5.0% decrease

Key Insights

• Deutsche Post's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• 43% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders
• Institutional ownership in Deutsche Post is 33%

If you want to know who really controls Deutsche Post AG (ETR:DHL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 49% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Following a 5.0% decrease in the stock price last week, retail investors suffered the most losses, but institutions who own 33% stock also took a hit.

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

View our latest analysis for Deutsche Post

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Deutsche Post?

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.

Deutsche Post 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Deutsche Post, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Deutsche Post. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is KfW with 18% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.2% of common stock, and The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds about 3.4% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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

Insider Ownership Of Deutsche Post

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.

Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

With a 49% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Deutsche Post. 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 18%, of the Deutsche Post 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 access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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.