APA Group's (ASX:APA) top owners are retail investors with 58% stake, while 42% is held by institutions
In This Article:
Key Insights
-
Significant control over APA Group by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
-
The top 25 shareholders own 39% of the company
If you want to know who really controls APA Group (ASX:APA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 58% to be precise, is retail investors. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Meanwhile, institutions make up 42% 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 delve deeper into each type of owner of APA Group, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for APA Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About APA Group?
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 APA Group. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 APA Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in APA Group. UniSuper Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.2% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 6.6% and 6.5%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.
A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.
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.