A look at the shareholders of Glanbia plc (ISE:GL9) 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. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.
Glanbia is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of €4.9b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about GL9.
See our latest analysis for Glanbia
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Glanbia?
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 own 31% of Glanbia. 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. 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 Glanbia’s historic earnings and revenue, below, but keep in mind there’s always more to the story.
Glanbia is not owned by hedge funds. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.
Insider Ownership Of Glanbia
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.
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.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Glanbia plc. We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. It’s a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own €15m worth of shares. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.