Hiab Oyj's (HEL:HIAB) large institutional owners must be happy as stock continues to impress, up 3.9% over the past week

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Hiab Oyj implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• 51% of the business is held by the top 9 shareholders
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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To get a sense of who is truly in control of Hiab Oyj (HEL:HIAB), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 46% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And last week, institutional investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit €2.5b in market cap. One-year return to shareholders is currently 13% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Hiab Oyj, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Hiab Oyj

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hiab Oyj?

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.

Hiab Oyj already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Hiab Oyj, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Hiab Oyj. Wipunen Varainhallinta Oy is currently the company's largest shareholder with 14% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 12% and 11%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

We also observed that the top 9 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.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Hiab Oyj

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Hiab Oyj. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own €66m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 28% stake in Hiab Oyj. 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 23%, 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Hiab Oyj better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Hiab Oyj .

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.