In This Article:
Key Insights
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Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, GEA Group's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
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The top 9 shareholders own 50% of the company
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Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
A look at the shareholders of GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:G1A) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 56% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).
Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of GEA Group.
View our latest analysis for GEA Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About GEA Group?
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.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in GEA Group. 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 GEA Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. GEA Group is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Massachusetts Financial Services Company with 11% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 9.1% and 7.0% of the stock.
We also observed that the top 9 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
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.