Guerbet SA's (EPA:GBT) top holders are insiders and they are likely disappointed by the recent 18% drop

Key Insights

• Guerbet's significant insider ownership suggests inherent interests in company's expansion
• The largest shareholder of the company is Michel Guerbet with a 55% stake
• 13% of Guerbet is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Guerbet SA (EPA:GBT), 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 55% to be precise, is individual insiders. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

As market cap fell to €280m last week, insiders would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

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

See our latest analysis for Guerbet

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Guerbet?

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.

We can see that Guerbet 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. 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 Guerbet's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Guerbet. The company's largest shareholder is Michel Guerbet, with ownership of 55%. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. The second and third largest shareholders are Amundi Asset Management SAS and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 1.4%.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Guerbet

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.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Guerbet SA stock. This gives them a lot of power. Given it has a market cap of €280m, that means they have €154m worth of shares. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 32% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Guerbet. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

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. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Guerbet (of which 1 is significant!) 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.