Institutional shareholders may be less affected by ASSA ABLOY AB (publ)'s (STO:ASSA B) pullback last week after a year of 0.8% returns

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies ASSA ABLOY's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 25 shareholders own 48% of the company
• Insiders have bought recently

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If you want to know who really controls ASSA ABLOY AB (publ) (STO:ASSA B), 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 51% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

No shareholder likes losing money on their investments, especially institutional investors who saw their holdings drop 3.6% in value last week. Still, the 0.8% one-year gains may have helped mitigate their overall losses. But they would probably be wary of future losses.

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

View our latest analysis for ASSA ABLOY

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ASSA ABLOY?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in ASSA ABLOY. 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 ASSA ABLOY, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. ASSA ABLOY is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Carl Douglas, with ownership of 9.5%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 5.2% and 3.7% of the stock.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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 ASSA ABLOY

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 ASSA ABLOY AB (publ). The insiders have a meaningful stake worth kr31b. Most would say this shows a good alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 36% stake in ASSA ABLOY. 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 3.1%, of the company's shares. 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 ASSA ABLOY better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with ASSA ABLOY .

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.