What Type Of Shareholders Own The Most Number of Lloyds Banking Group plc (LON:LLOY) Shares?
The big shareholder groups in Lloyds Banking Group plc (LON:LLOY) have power over the company. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.
Lloyds Banking Group is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of UK£28b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Lloyds Banking Group.
View our latest analysis for Lloyds Banking Group
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Lloyds Banking Group?
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.
Lloyds Banking Group already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Lloyds Banking Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
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 Lloyds Banking Group. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 7.2%. Harris Associates L.P. is the second largest shareholder owning 6.8% of common stock, and HBOS Investment Fund Managers Limited holds about 3.8% of the company stock.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 22 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.
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 Lloyds Banking Group
The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.
Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Lloyds Banking Group plc in their own names. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own UK£49m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public, with a 17% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Lloyds Banking Group better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Lloyds Banking Group (1 shouldn't be ignored) that you should be aware of.
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.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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