Private equity firms in Exail Technologies (EPA:EXA) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 10% last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Exail Technologies by private equity firms implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• A total of 4 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• 22% of Exail Technologies is held by Institutions

Our free stock report includes 1 warning sign investors should be aware of before investing in Exail Technologies. Read for free now.

If you want to know who really controls Exail Technologies (EPA:EXA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are private equity firms with 44% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Clearly, private equity firms benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by €74m last week.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Exail Technologies.

Check out our latest analysis for Exail Technologies

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Exail Technologies?

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.

Exail Technologies already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Exail Technologies' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Exail Technologies. Pelican Venture SAS is currently the company's largest shareholder with 44% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 3.1% and 2.5%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Furthermore, CEO Raphael Gorge is the owner of 0.5% of the company's shares.

On looking further, we found that 52% of the shares are owned by the top 4 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in 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. 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 Exail Technologies

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Exail Technologies. In their own names, insiders own €9.7m worth of stock in the €803m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 33% stake in Exail Technologies. 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 Equity Ownership

With an ownership of 44%, private equity firms are in a position to play a role in shaping corporate strategy with a focus on value creation. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Exail Technologies .

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.