Individual investors are ABIVAX Société Anonyme's (EPA:ABVX) biggest owners and were rewarded after market cap rose by €47m last week

Key Insights

• ABIVAX Société Anonyme's significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• A total of 21 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls ABIVAX Société Anonyme (EPA:ABVX), 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 50% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, individual investors were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 7.6% gain.

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

See our latest analysis for ABIVAX Société Anonyme

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ABIVAX Société Anonyme?

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.

We can see that ABIVAX Société Anonyme does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 ABIVAX Société Anonyme'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 ABIVAX Société Anonyme. TCG Crossover Management, LLC is currently the largest shareholder, with 8.6% of shares outstanding. With 8.4% and 7.9% of the shares outstanding respectively, Sofinnova Partners SAS and Truffle Capital S.A.S. are the second and third largest shareholders.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 21 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 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 ABIVAX Société Anonyme

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of ABIVAX Société Anonyme. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It has a market capitalization of just €664m, and the board has only €3.7m worth of shares in their own names. Many tend to prefer to see a board with bigger shareholdings. A good next step might be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 50% stake in ABIVAX Société Anonyme. 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.

Private Equity Ownership

With a stake of 43%, private equity firms could influence the ABIVAX Société Anonyme board. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.

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. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with ABIVAX Société Anonyme (including 2 which can't be ignored) .

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.