Here's What Cornerstone Building Brands, Inc.'s (NYSE:CNR) Shareholder Ownership Structure Looks Like

If you want to know who really controls Cornerstone Building Brands, Inc. (NYSE:CNR), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

Cornerstone Building Brands isn't enormous, but it's not particularly small either. It has a market capitalization of US$1.6b, which means it would generally expect to see some institutions on the share registry. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Cornerstone Building Brands.

View our latest analysis for Cornerstone Building Brands

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Cornerstone Building Brands?

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.

We can see that Cornerstone Building Brands does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Cornerstone Building Brands, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Cornerstone Building Brands is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC with 50% of shares outstanding. Golden Gate Capital is the second largest shareholder owning 6.6% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 2.6% of the company stock. Furthermore, CEO James Metcalf is the owner of 0.8% of the company's shares.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence 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. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Cornerstone Building Brands

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Cornerstone Building Brands, 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$46m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 13% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Cornerstone Building Brands. 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 Equity Ownership

With an ownership of 56%, private equity firms are in a position to play a role in shaping corporate strategy with a focus on value creation. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Cornerstone Building Brands better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Cornerstone Building Brands .

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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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