City Holding Company (NASDAQ:CHCO) is largely controlled by institutional shareholders who own 71% of the company
Key Insights
Institutions' substantial holdings in City Holding implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
The top 10 shareholders own 51% of the company
If you want to know who really controls City Holding Company (NASDAQ:CHCO), 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 71% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of City Holding.
View our latest analysis for City Holding
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About City Holding?
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 City Holding. 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 City Holding'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. City Holding is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 15%. With 12% and 4.3% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Westwood Management Corp. are the second and third largest shareholders.
We did some more digging and found that 10 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of City Holding
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.
I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.
We can report that insiders do own shares in City Holding Company. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own US$36m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
With a 27% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over City Holding. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand City Holding better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for City Holding (1 is potentially serious!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
