Painful week for retail investors invested in Eiffage SA (EPA:FGR) after 5.8% drop, institutions also suffered losses

Key Insights

• Significant control over Eiffage by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 46% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders
• Institutional ownership in Eiffage is 34%

If you want to know who really controls Eiffage SA (EPA:FGR), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 47% stake, retail investors possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While institutions, who own 34% shares weren’t spared from last week’s €483m market cap drop, retail investors as a group suffered the maximum losses

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

See our latest analysis for Eiffage

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Eiffage?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Eiffage. 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 Eiffage, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Eiffage is not owned by hedge funds. Eiffage SA, ESOP is currently the largest shareholder, with 19% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.6% of common stock, and PRO BTP Finance SA holds about 4.0% of the company stock.

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.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Eiffage

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. 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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Eiffage SA in their own names. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own €15m worth of shares (at current prices). In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 47% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Eiffage. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Eiffage better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Eiffage 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.