With 37% ownership of the shares, Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen SA (WSE:PZU) is heavily dominated by institutional owners

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 5 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen SA (WSE:PZU), 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 37% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

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

See our latest analysis for Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen?

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.

Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen 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. 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 Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen. The company's largest shareholder is Ministry of State Treasury, with ownership of 34%. Allianz Asset Management GmbH is the second largest shareholder owning 5.3% of common stock, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P. holds about 5.0% of the company stock.

On looking further, we found that 52% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of the company.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen

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 data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

With a 28% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks for example - Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

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.