With 50% ownership in Agora S.A. (WSE:AGO), institutional investors have a lot riding on the business

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Agora's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 5 shareholders own 54% of the company
• Ownership research, combined with past performance data can help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls Agora S.A. (WSE:AGO), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 50% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 10% last week. One-year return to shareholders is currently 117% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Agora.

See our latest analysis for Agora

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Agora?

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.

Agora 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 Agora's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Agora. Powszechne Towarzystwo Emerytalne PZU SA is currently the largest shareholder, with 18% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Agora - Holding Spolka z ograniczonya odpowiedzialnoscia and Media Development Investment Fund, Inc., Endowment Arm, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 12%.

Our research also brought to light the fact that roughly 54% of the company is controlled by the top 5 shareholders suggesting that these owners wield significant influence on the business.

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. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Agora

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 some shares in Agora S.A.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own zł10m worth of the zł536m company. This shows at least some alignment, but we usually like to see larger insider holdings. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 37% stake in Agora. 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.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 12%, of the shares on issue. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Agora better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Agora .

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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.