Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Cohort implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• 52% of the business is held by the top 4 shareholders

• Insiders have been selling lately

Every investor in Cohort plc (LON:CHRT) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 60% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Cohort

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Cohort?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Cohort. 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. 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 Cohort's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

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 Cohort. Albert Edward Carter is currently the largest shareholder, with 22% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 15% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 10% by the third-largest shareholder. Furthermore, CEO Andrew Thomis is the owner of 0.6% of the company's shares.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.