What Type Of Shareholders Own The Most Number of Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) Shares?

Every investor in Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

Lincoln Electric Holdings is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of US$7.1b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Lincoln Electric Holdings.

Check out our latest analysis for Lincoln Electric Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Lincoln Electric Holdings?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Lincoln Electric Holdings. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Lincoln Electric Holdings, (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. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Lincoln Electric Holdings. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc. with 9.4% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 9.1% of common stock, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Inc. holds about 6.4% of the company stock.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 15 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Lincoln Electric Holdings

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc.. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around US$103m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows 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 holds a 22% stake in Lincoln Electric Holdings. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Lincoln Electric Holdings 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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