Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd. (NYSE:HG) has caught the attention of institutional investors who hold a sizeable 36% stake

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Hamilton Insurance Group implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• 51% of the business is held by the top 9 shareholders
• Insiders have been selling lately

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd. (NYSE:HG), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 36% to be precise, is institutions. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

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

View our latest analysis for Hamilton Insurance Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hamilton Insurance Group?

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.

We can see that Hamilton Insurance Group does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Hamilton Insurance Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Our data indicates that hedge funds own 15% of Hamilton Insurance Group. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Magnitude Capital, LLC is currently the largest shareholder, with 15% of shares outstanding. With 9.0% and 8.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, Hopkins Holdings, LLC and Sango Hoken Holdings, LLC are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Giuseppina Albo, the CEO has 0.5% of the shares allocated to their name.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 9 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Hamilton Insurance Group

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$50m. Most would see this as a real positive. 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-- including retail investors -- own 29% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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

We can see that Private Companies own 18%, 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 Hamilton Insurance Group better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Hamilton Insurance Group (1 is a bit concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.