With 53% institutional ownership, Huhtamäki Oyj (HEL:HUH1V) is a favorite amongst the big guns

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Huhtamäki Oyj implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• 46% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders
• Insiders have bought recently

If you want to know who really controls Huhtamäki Oyj (HEL:HUH1V), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 53% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

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

View our latest analysis for Huhtamäki Oyj

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Huhtamäki Oyj?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Huhtamäki Oyj. 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 Huhtamäki Oyj's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Huhtamäki Oyj. Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Endowment Arm is currently the company's largest shareholder with 11% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 3.8% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.4% by the third-largest shareholder.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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 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 Huhtamäki Oyj

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Huhtamäki Oyj. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around €39m worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 45% stake in Huhtamäki 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.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Huhtamäki Oyj you should know about.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.