United Utilities Group PLC's (LON:UU.) high institutional ownership speaks for itself as stock continues to impress, up 8.2% over last week
In This Article:
Key Insights
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Significantly high institutional ownership implies United Utilities Group's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
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The top 14 shareholders own 51% of the company
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Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
To get a sense of who is truly in control of United Utilities Group PLC (LON:UU.), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 82% 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￡7.3b in market cap. One-year return to shareholders is currently 18% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of United Utilities Group, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for United Utilities Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About United Utilities 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.
We can see that United Utilities 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. 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 United Utilities Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. United Utilities Group is not owned by hedge funds. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.5% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 8.3% and 5.2% of the stock.
Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 14 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.
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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.