Beach Energy Limited's (ASX:BPT) largest shareholders are retail investors who were rewarded as market cap surged AU$125m last week

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editorial-team@simplywallst.com (Simply Wall St)

Sat, Mar 22, 2025, 4:17 PM 4 min read

If you want to know who really controls Beach Energy Limited (ASX:BPT), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 48% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Clearly, retail investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by AU$125m last week.

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

See our latest analysis for Beach Energy

ownership-breakdown — ASX:BPT Ownership Breakdown March 22nd 2025

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Beach Energy?

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.

Beach Energy already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Beach Energy's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

earnings-and-revenue-growth — ASX:BPT Earnings and Revenue Growth March 22nd 2025

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Beach Energy. SGH Limited is currently the largest shareholder, with 30% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 4.8% and 4.5% 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 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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Beach Energy

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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

We can report that insiders do own shares in Beach Energy Limited. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own AU$39m 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 48% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Beach Energy. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 30% of Beach Energy. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Beach Energy .

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.