EBOS Group Limited's (NZSE:EBO) 14% loss last week hit both individual investors who own 59% as well as institutions

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in EBOS Group indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 25 shareholders own 40% of the company
• Institutions own 22% of EBOS Group

If you want to know who really controls EBOS Group Limited (NZSE:EBO), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 59% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While institutions who own 22% came under pressure after market cap dropped to NZ$6.9b last week,retail investors took the most losses.

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

View our latest analysis for EBOS Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About EBOS Group?

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.

EBOS Group 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at EBOS Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in EBOS Group. Our data shows that Sybos Holdings Pte Limited is the largest shareholder with 18% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.0% of common stock, and The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds about 3.2% of the company stock.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 EBOS Group

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.

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 EBOS Group Limited. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It's a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own NZ$5.8m worth of shares. Arguably, recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 59% of EBOS Group shares. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 18%, of the EBOS Group stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

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.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

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.