WEBULL

Retail investors account for 35% of MERLIN Properties SOCIMI, S.A.'s (BME:MRL) ownership, while institutions account for 32%

Simply Wall St · 2d ago

Key Insights

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A look at the shareholders of MERLIN Properties SOCIMI, S.A. (BME:MRL) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 35% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 32% of the company's stockholders. 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 take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about MERLIN Properties SOCIMI.

See our latest analysis for MERLIN Properties SOCIMI

ownership-breakdown
BME:MRL Ownership Breakdown December 24th 2025

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About MERLIN Properties SOCIMI?

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 MERLIN Properties SOCIMI. 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 MERLIN Properties SOCIMI's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

earnings-and-revenue-growth
BME:MRL Earnings and Revenue Growth December 24th 2025

It would appear that 25% of MERLIN Properties SOCIMI 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 Santander Asset Management SA SGIIC with 25% of shares outstanding. With 8.2% and 4.5% of the shares outstanding respectively, Manuel Lao Hernandez and BlackRock, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 12 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 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 MERLIN Properties SOCIMI

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 see that insiders own shares in MERLIN Properties SOCIMI, S.A.. It is a very large company, and board members collectively own €565m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 35% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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 MERLIN Properties SOCIMI better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for MERLIN Properties SOCIMI (1 is a bit unpleasant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.