Yahoo Finance SBM Offshore N.V.'s (AMS:SBMO) top owners are retail investors with 38% stake, while 30% is held by institutions
Key Insights
Significant control over SBM Offshore by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
The top 10 shareholders own 52% of the company
Every investor in SBM Offshore N.V. (AMS:SBMO) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 38% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
And institutions on the other hand have a 30% ownership in 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.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of SBM Offshore, beginning with the chart below.
View our latest analysis for SBM Offshore
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About SBM Offshore?
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 SBM Offshore. 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 SBM Offshore, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
It would appear that 10% of SBM Offshore shares are controlled by hedge funds. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is HAL Investments B.V. with 21% of shares outstanding. With 10% and 3.2% of the shares outstanding respectively, Parvus Asset Management Europe Limited and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP are the second and third largest shareholders.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
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.
Insider Ownership Of SBM Offshore
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.
Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in SBM Offshore N.V.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth €33m. Most would see this as a real positive. 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
The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 38% stake in SBM Offshore. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
Private Equity Ownership
Private equity firms hold a 21% stake in SBM Offshore. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.
Next Steps:
I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for SBM Offshore (of which 2 are concerning!) you should know about.
But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.
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.
