If you want to know who really controls Hunter Douglas NV (AMS:HDG), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said ‘Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.’
Hunter Douglas isn’t enormous, but it’s not particularly small either. It has a market capitalization of €2.0b, which means it would generally expect to see some institutions on the share registry. Taking a look at the our data on the ownership groups (below), it’s seems that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about HDG.
See our latest analysis for Hunter Douglas
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hunter Douglas?
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.
We can see that Hunter Douglas does have institutional investors; and they hold 6.8% of the 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. 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 Hunter Douglas, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
We note that hedge funds don’t have a meaningful investment in Hunter Douglas. We’re not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held.
Insider Ownership Of Hunter Douglas
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.
It seems that insiders own more than half the Hunter Douglas NV stock. This gives them a lot of power. Insiders own €1.7b worth of shares in the €2.0b company. That’s extraordinary! Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if they have been selling down their stake.