Institutional owners may consider drastic measures as Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited's (NSE:ZEEL) recent ₹15b drop adds to long-term losses

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Zee Entertainment Enterprises' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• A total of 20 investors have a majority stake in the company with 51% ownership
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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Every investor in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (NSE:ZEEL) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 57% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, institutional investors endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by ₹15b. The recent loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 5.1% for stockholders, may not sit well with this group of investors. Institutions or "liquidity providers" control large sums of money and therefore, these types of investors usually have a lot of influence over stock price movements. Hence, if weakness in Zee Entertainment Enterprises' share price continues, institutional investors may feel compelled to sell the stock, which might not be ideal for individual investors.

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

See our latest analysis for Zee Entertainment Enterprises

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Zee Entertainment Enterprises?

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.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises 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. 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 Zee Entertainment Enterprises' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Zee Entertainment Enterprises. Our data shows that Sprucegrove Investment Management Ltd is the largest shareholder with 5.0% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 4.6% and 4.0% of the stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 20 have the combined ownership of 51% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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 Zee Entertainment Enterprises

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

With a 39% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Zee Entertainment Enterprises. 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 Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 4.0%, of the Zee Entertainment Enterprises stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Zee Entertainment Enterprises is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.