Retail investors who have a significant stake must be disappointed along with institutions after Veolia Environnement SA's (EPA:VIE) market cap dropped by €952m

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in Veolia Environnement indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 37% ownership
• Institutional ownership in Veolia Environnement is 43%

If you want to know who really controls Veolia Environnement SA (EPA:VIE), 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 50% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Following a 4.9% decrease in the stock price last week, retail investors suffered the most losses, but institutions who own 43% stock also took a hit.

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

View our latest analysis for Veolia Environnement

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Veolia Environnement?

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.

Veolia Environnement 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. 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 Veolia Environnement's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Veolia Environnement. Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations is currently the largest shareholder, with 6.4% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.0% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.4% by the third-largest shareholder.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 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 Veolia Environnement

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 information suggests that Veolia Environnement SA insiders own under 1% of the company. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own €5.2m worth of shares (at current prices). 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, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 50% of Veolia Environnement shares. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 6.4%, of the Veolia Environnement stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Veolia Environnement better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 4 warning signs for Veolia Environnement you should be aware of, and 1 of them makes us a bit uncomfortable.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

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.