Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, HelloFresh's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions

• The top 15 shareholders own 52% of the company

• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

A look at the shareholders of HelloFresh SE (ETR:HFG) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 62% 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. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of HelloFresh, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for HelloFresh

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About HelloFresh?

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 HelloFresh. 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 HelloFresh'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. HelloFresh is not owned by hedge funds. The company's CEO Dominik Richter is the largest shareholder with 5.8% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 5.4% and 5.1%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 15 shareholders have a combined ownership of 52% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.