Aegon Ltd.'s (AMS:AGN) institutional investors lost 6.3% last week but have benefitted from longer-term gains

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Aegon's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• The top 8 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 Aegon Ltd. (AMS:AGN) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 43% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

No shareholder likes losing money on their investments, especially institutional investors who saw their holdings drop 6.3% in value last week. However, the 16% one-year returns may have helped alleviate their overall losses. We would assume however, that they would be on the lookout for weakness in the future.

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

View our latest analysis for Aegon

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Aegon?

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.

Aegon 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 Aegon'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 Aegon. Vereniging AEGON is currently the largest shareholder, with 20% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 12% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.2% by the third-largest shareholder.

We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Aegon

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Aegon Ltd.. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own €1.4m worth of shares (at current prices). In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 37% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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

We can see that Private Companies own 20%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Aegon .

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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. 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.