Institutional investors must be pleased after a 8.8% gain last week that adds to Surgical Science Sweden AB (publ)'s (STO:SUS) one-year returns

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Surgical Science Sweden implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• A total of 10 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• Insider ownership in Surgical Science Sweden is 15%

We've discovered 1 warning sign about Surgical Science Sweden. View them for free.

A look at the shareholders of Surgical Science Sweden AB (publ) (STO:SUS) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 51% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained kr623m in market cap last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 2.9% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Surgical Science Sweden

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Surgical Science Sweden?

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 Surgical Science Sweden. 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 Surgical Science Sweden's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Surgical Science Sweden is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that Jan Bengtsson is the largest shareholder with 14% of shares outstanding. With 6.4% and 6.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, Capital Research and Management Company and Handelsbanken Asset Management are the second and third largest shareholders.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Surgical Science Sweden

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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Surgical Science Sweden AB (publ). Insiders have a kr1.1b stake in this kr7.7b business. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 35% stake in Surgical Science Sweden. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Surgical Science Sweden better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Surgical Science Sweden is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.