Great week for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) institutional investors after losing 7.0% over the previous year
Simply Wall St · 09/15 11:41

Key Insights

  • Significantly high institutional ownership implies Citigroup's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
  • A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 44% ownership
  • Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

If you want to know who really controls Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 70% stake, institutions 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).

Institutional investors would appreciate the 5.9% increase in share prices last week, given their one-year returns have been disappointing at 7.0%.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Citigroup, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Citigroup

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NYSE:C Ownership Breakdown September 15th 2023

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Citigroup?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

Citigroup 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. 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 Citigroup's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

earnings-and-revenue-growth
NYSE:C Earnings and Revenue Growth September 15th 2023

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Citigroup. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc. with 8.8% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 8.5% and 4.4% of the stock.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 Citigroup

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Citigroup Inc.. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own US$138m of stock. 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, who are usually individual investors, hold a 27% stake in Citigroup. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.

I always like to check for a history of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart of historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.