Aena S.M.E., S.A.'s (BME:AENA) stock price dropped 4.0% last week; private companies would not be happy

Key Insights

• Aena S.M.E's significant private companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• 51% of the company is held by a single shareholder (Entidad Pública Empresarial ENAIRE)
• 21% of Aena S.M.E is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Aena S.M.E., S.A. (BME:AENA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 53% to be precise, is private companies. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As market cap fell to €32b last week, private companies would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Aena S.M.E, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Aena S.M.E

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Aena S.M.E?

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 Aena S.M.E 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. 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 Aena S.M.E, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Aena S.M.E. Entidad Pública Empresarial ENAIRE is currently the company's largest shareholder with 51% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 3.8% and 3.0% of the stock.

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

Insider Ownership Of Aena S.M.E

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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our information suggests that Aena S.M.E., S.A. insiders own under 1% of the company. We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own €317k of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 26% stake in Aena S.M.E. 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 53%, of the company's shares. 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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Aena S.M.E you should be aware of.

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.