Yahoo Finance How Many Severn Trent Plc (LON:SVT) Shares Do Institutions Own?
A look at the shareholders of Severn Trent Plc (LON:SVT) can tell us which group is most powerful. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.
Severn Trent is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of UK£7.3b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Severn Trent.
Check out our latest analysis for Severn Trent
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Severn Trent?
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.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Severn Trent. 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. 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 Severn Trent, (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. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Severn Trent. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 8.7%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 5.5% and 4.6%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 16 have the combined ownership of 51% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.
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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of Severn Trent
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Severn Trent Plc. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own UK£14m of stock. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.
General Public Ownership
With a 16% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Severn Trent. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Severn Trent better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Severn Trent you should know about.
Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
