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A look at the shareholders of ASX Limited (ASX:ASX) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 53% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).
Meanwhile, institutions make up 46% of the company’s shareholders. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of ASX.
See our latest analysis for ASX
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ASX?
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.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in ASX. 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. 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 ASX, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Hedge funds don't have many shares in ASX. UniSuper Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are BlackRock, Inc. and AustralianSuper Pty. Ltd., with an equal amount of shares to their name at 6.1%.
A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.
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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of ASX
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
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.
Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of ASX Limited in their own names. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own AU$68m worth of shares (at current prices). Arguably recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.