Do Institutions Own ASOS Plc (LON:ASC) Shares?
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If you want to know who really controls ASOS Plc (LON:ASC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.
ASOS is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of UK£5.6b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about ASOS.
See our latest analysis for ASOS
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ASOS?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in ASOS. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 ASOS, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Our data indicates that hedge funds own 5.2% of ASOS. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Bestseller United A/S is currently the company's largest shareholder with 25% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 10.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. and Capital Research and Management Company are the second and third largest shareholders.
Our research also brought to light the fact that roughly 51% of the company is controlled by the top 4 shareholders suggesting that these owners wield significant influence on the business.
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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.