Yahoo Finance While institutions own 27% of Standard Bank Group Limited (JSE:SBK), individual investors are its largest shareholders with 39% ownership
Key Insights
Standard Bank Group's significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
51% of the business is held by the top 10 shareholders
To get a sense of who is truly in control of Standard Bank Group Limited (JSE:SBK), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 39% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Meanwhile, institutions make up 27% of the company’s shareholders. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Standard Bank Group.
View our latest analysis for Standard Bank Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Standard Bank Group?
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.
As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Standard Bank Group. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Standard Bank Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Standard Bank Group is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited is the largest shareholder with 20% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 15% and 5.1%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
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 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 Standard Bank Group
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.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Standard Bank Group Limited. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own R254m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 39% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Standard Bank Group. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.
Public Company Ownership
We can see that public companies hold 20% of the Standard Bank Group shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.
Next Steps:
I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks for example - Standard Bank Group has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.
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.
