A look at the shareholders of Jet2 plc (LON:JET2) can tell us which group is most powerful. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Warren Buffett said that he likes "a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people." So it's nice to see some insider ownership, because it may suggest that management is owner-oriented.

With a market capitalization of UK£2.7b, Jet2 is rather large. We'd expect to see institutional investors on the register. Companies of this size are usually well known to retail investors, too. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Jet2.

Check out our latest analysis for Jet2

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Jet2?

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 Jet2. 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 Jet2's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. It looks like hedge funds own 5.6% of Jet2 shares. That's interesting, because hedge funds can be quite active and activist. Many look for medium term catalysts that will drive the share price higher. Because actions speak louder than words, we consider it a good sign when insiders own a significant stake in a company. In Jet2's case, its Top Key Executive, Philip Meeson, is the largest shareholder, holding 22% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 5.0% and 3.2%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 12 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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.