While individual investors own 32% of ALSO Holding AG (VTX:ALSN), private companies are its largest shareholders with 53% ownership

Simply Wall St · 09/15/2023 04:35

Key Insights

  • Significant control over ALSO Holding by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
  • Droege Group AG owns 53% of the company
  • 15% of ALSO Holding is held by Institutions

To get a sense of who is truly in control of ALSO Holding AG (VTX:ALSN), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 53% stake, private companies possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Meanwhile, individual investors make up 32% of the company’s shareholders.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about ALSO Holding.

See our latest analysis for ALSO Holding

ownership-breakdown
SWX:ALSN Ownership Breakdown September 15th 2023

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ALSO 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.

ALSO Holding already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 ALSO Holding's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

earnings-and-revenue-growth
SWX:ALSN Earnings and Revenue Growth September 15th 2023

Hedge funds don't have many shares in ALSO Holding. Our data shows that Droege Group AG is the largest shareholder with 53% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. With 3.3% and 1.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, J. Safra Sarasin Investmentfonds Ltd and UBS Asset Management AG are the second and third largest shareholders.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of ALSO Holding

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our information suggests that ALSO Holding AG insiders own under 1% of the company. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. It's a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own CHF109k worth of shares. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 32% stake in the company, and hence can't 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.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 53%, of the ALSO Holding stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

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.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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.