Institutional shareholders may be less affected by SouthState Corporation's (NYSE:SSB) pullback last week after a year of 1.7% returns

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

Tue, Apr 8, 2025, 6:21 AM 4 min read

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About SouthState?

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 SouthState. 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 SouthState's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

earnings-and-revenue-growth — NYSE:SSB Earnings and Revenue Growth April 8th 2025

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in SouthState. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 12%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 8.3% and 3.9%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 19 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of SouthState

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.

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 SouthState Corporation. It is a very large company, and board members collectively own US$109m worth of shares (at current prices). we sometimes take an interest in whether they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 27% stake in SouthState. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand SouthState better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for SouthState (of which 1 shouldn't be ignored!) you should know about.

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.