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Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies IMI's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

• A total of 14 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership

• Insiders have bought recently

If you want to know who really controls IMI plc (LON:IMI), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 89% 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. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

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

Check out our latest analysis for IMI

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About IMI?

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 IMI does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at IMI's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. IMI is not owned by hedge funds. Massachusetts Financial Services Company is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.3% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 6.2% and 5.3% of the stock.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 14 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 IMI

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.