What Kind Of Investors Own Most Of Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A. (BIT:INW)?

A look at the shareholders of Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A. (BIT:INW) can tell us which group is most powerful. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of €10b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane.

Check out our latest analysis for Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Vodafone Group Plc with 33% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 30% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.0% by the third-largest shareholder.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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 Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane

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.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. Not all jurisdictions have the same rules around disclosing insider ownership, and it is possible we have missed something, here. So you can click here learn more about the CEO.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 14% stake in Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane. 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 31%, of the Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 36% of the Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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. 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.
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