To get a sense of who is truly in control of NZME Limited (NZSE:NZM), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 45% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
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.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of NZME, beginning with the chart below.
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About NZME?
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.
NZME 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 NZME's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
NZSE:NZM Earnings and Revenue Growth May 17th 2025
Our data indicates that hedge funds own 6.5% of NZME. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. The company's largest shareholder is Spheria Asset Management Pty Ltd, with ownership of 19%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 11% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 9.3% by the third-largest shareholder. Additionally, the company's CEO Michael Boggs directly holds 1.6% of the total shares outstanding.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 6 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
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. There is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.
Insider Ownership Of NZME
The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.
It seems insiders own a significant proportion of NZME Limited. Insiders have a NZ$25m stake in this NZ$217m business. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 34% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand NZME better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for NZME that you should be aware of.
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.
