Key Insights

• Significant control over Siemens by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions

• 31% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders

• Institutional ownership in Siemens is 38%

If you want to know who really controls Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (ETR:SIE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 59% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 38% of the company's stockholders. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Siemens.

Check out our latest analysis for Siemens

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Siemens?

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.

We can see that Siemens does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Siemens, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Siemens. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 6.2% of shares outstanding. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 4.0% of common stock, and Capital Research and Management Company holds about 3.1% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where 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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.