Kering SA (EPA:KER) stock most popular amongst private companies who own 43%, while individual investors hold 28%

Key Insights

• Significant control over Kering by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 53% of the business is held by the top 3 shareholders
• Institutions own 24% of Kering

If you want to know who really controls Kering SA (EPA:KER), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 43% to be precise, is private companies. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Individual investors, on the other hand, account for 28% of the company's stockholders.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Kering.

View our latest analysis for Kering

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Kering?

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.

Kering already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Kering'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 Kering. Our data shows that Financière Pinault SCA is the largest shareholder with 43% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Citigroup Inc. and Baillie Gifford & Co., with an equal amount of shares to their name at 5.1%.

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.

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 plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Kering

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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Kering SA in their own names. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. As it is a large company, we'd only expect insiders to own a small percentage of it. But it's worth noting that they own €9.4m worth of shares. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 28% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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 43%, of the Kering 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.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 5.1% of Kering stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Kering better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Kering 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.