Euronext N.V.'s (EPA:ENX) top owners are individual investors with 44% stake, while 43% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• Euronext's significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The top 25 shareholders own 46% of the company
• Institutions own 43% of Euronext

If you want to know who really controls Euronext N.V. (EPA:ENX), 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 individual investors with 44% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Meanwhile, institutions make up 43% of the company’s shareholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

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

See our latest analysis for Euronext

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Euronext?

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.

We can see that Euronext does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Euronext's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Euronext. CDP Equity is currently the largest shareholder, with 7.6% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.6% and 5.3%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

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 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 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 Euronext

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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 Euronext N.V. in their own names. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own €14m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 44% 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 Equity Ownership

With a stake of 7.6%, private equity firms could influence the Euronext board. 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Euronext better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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.