The big shareholder groups in Waypoint REIT Limited (ASX:WPR) have power over the company. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of AU$2.0b, Waypoint REIT is a decent size, so it is probably on the radar of institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Waypoint REIT.

View our latest analysis for Waypoint REIT

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Waypoint REIT?

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.

Waypoint REIT already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Waypoint REIT's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Waypoint REIT is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc. with 11% of shares outstanding. With 7.2% and 6.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, UBS Asset Management and BlackRock, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.