In This Article:
Key Insights
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Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Wickes Group's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
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50% of the business is held by the top 15 shareholders
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Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
A look at the shareholders of Wickes Group plc (LON:WIX) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 84% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Wickes Group.
Check out our latest analysis for Wickes Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Wickes Group?
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.
Wickes Group already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Wickes Group, (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. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Wickes Group. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is J O Hambro Capital Management Limited with 5.5% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 4.4% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.2% by the third-largest shareholder.
Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 15 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.
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.