Clarkson PLC's (LON:CKN) large institutional owners must be happy as stock continues to impress, up 5.3% over the past week

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Clarkson implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 15 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

A look at the shareholders of Clarkson PLC (LON:CKN) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 74% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained UK£56m in market cap last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 38% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

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

View our latest analysis for Clarkson

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Clarkson?

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 Clarkson 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Clarkson, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Clarkson. The company's largest shareholder is Clarkson plc, ESOP, with ownership of 11%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 5.0% and 4.9% of the stock. In addition, we found that Andi Case, the CEO has 1.9% of the shares allocated to their name.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 15 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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 Clarkson

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Clarkson PLC. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around UK£27m worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 11% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Clarkson that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.