Private companies account for 53% of Société BIC SA's (EPA:BB) ownership, while institutions account for 29%

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by private companies in Société BIC indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 3 shareholders own 57% of the company
• 29% of Société BIC is held by Institutions

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Every investor in Société BIC SA (EPA:BB) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. With 53% stake, private companies possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Meanwhile, institutions make up 29% of the company’s shareholders. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Société BIC

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Société BIC?

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.

Société BIC 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Société BIC's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Société BIC. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Société MBD with 31% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 17% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 8.7% by the third-largest shareholder.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Société BIC

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.

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 Société BIC SA. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth €28m. Most would see this as a real positive. 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

With a 18% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Société BIC. 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

It seems that Private Companies own 53%, of the Société BIC stock. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Société BIC you should know about.

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.