Key Insights

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

• 51% of the business is held by the top 7 shareholders

• Recent purchases by insiders

Every investor in Afentra plc (LON:AET) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 52% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And last week, institutional investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit UK￡85m in market cap. One-year return to shareholders is currently 48% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Afentra.

View our latest analysis for Afentra

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Afentra?

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.

We can see that Afentra 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. 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 Afentra'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. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Afentra. The company's largest shareholder is Askar Alshinbayev, with ownership of 22%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.6% and 7.2% of the stock. In addition, we found that Paul McDade, the CEO has 1.4% of the shares allocated to their name.

We did some more digging and found that 7 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. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.