Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Omni Bridgeway's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions

• The top 9 shareholders own 51% of the company

• Recent purchases by insiders

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Omni Bridgeway Limited (ASX:OBL), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 63% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. 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. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

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

See our latest analysis for Omni Bridgeway

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Omni Bridgeway?

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.

Omni Bridgeway already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Omni Bridgeway's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Omni Bridgeway is not owned by hedge funds. The Retail Employees Superannuation Trust is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.5% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.8% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Raymond van Hulst, the CEO has 1.8% of the shares allocated to their name.

We did some more digging and found that 9 of the top shareholders account for roughly 51% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.