Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in 3i Group implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• The top 17 shareholders own 50% of the company

• Insiders have been buying lately

If you want to know who really controls 3i Group plc (LON:III), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 86% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Last week’s 4.1% gain means that institutional investors were on the positive end of the spectrum even as the company has shown strong longer-term trends. The one-year return on investment is currently 61% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of 3i Group.

Check out our latest analysis for 3i Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About 3i 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.

We can see that 3i Group does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see 3i Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

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 3i Group. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 8.9% of shares outstanding. Capital Research and Management Company is the second largest shareholder owning 5.1% of common stock, and WCM Investment Management, LLC holds about 4.9% of the company stock. In addition, we found that Simon Borrows, the CEO has 1.7% of the shares allocated to their name.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 17 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.