After a year of 5.3% returns, Gruppo MutuiOnline S.p.A's (BIT:MOL) share price drop last week may have less of an impact on institutional investors

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Gruppo MutuiOnline's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• 59% of the business is held by the top 2 shareholders
• Insiders have been selling lately

If you want to know who really controls Gruppo MutuiOnline S.p.A (BIT:MOL), 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 institutions with 41% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutional investors endured the highest losses after the company's market cap fell by €58m last week. However, the 5.3% one-year return to shareholders might have softened the blow. But they would probably be wary of future losses.

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

View our latest analysis for Gruppo MutuiOnline

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Gruppo MutuiOnline?

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 Gruppo MutuiOnline 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 Gruppo MutuiOnline, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Gruppo MutuiOnline is not owned by hedge funds. Alma Ventures S.A. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 35% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 23% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.3% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Alessandro Alvaro Fracassi, the CEO has 0.8% of the shares allocated to their name.

A more detailed study of the shareholder registry showed us that 2 of the top shareholders have a considerable amount of ownership in the company, via their 59% stake.

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 is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Gruppo MutuiOnline

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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 Gruppo MutuiOnline S.p.A. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own €29m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 17% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 40%, of the Gruppo MutuiOnline 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Gruppo MutuiOnline better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Gruppo MutuiOnline (1 can't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.