Adyen N.V.'s (AMS:ADYEN) top owners are individual investors with 51% stake, while 45% is held by institutions

Key Insights

• Significant control over Adyen by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 40% ownership
• Institutions own 45% of Adyen

If you want to know who really controls Adyen N.V. (AMS:ADYEN), 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 individual investors with 51% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 45% of the company's stockholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Adyen.

See our latest analysis for Adyen

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Adyen?

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.

Adyen already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Adyen's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Adyen is not owned by hedge funds. Baillie Gifford & Co. is currently the largest shareholder, with 6.1% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.0% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.7% by the third-largest shareholder. Furthermore, CEO Pieter van der Does is the owner of 2.9% of the company's shares.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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 plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Adyen

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 report that insiders do own shares in Adyen N.V.. Insiders own €2.2b worth of shares (at current prices). we sometimes take an interest in whether they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 51% of Adyen shares. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Adyen better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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.