Key Insights

Significantly high institutional ownership implies Surface Transforms' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions The top 8 shareholders own 50% of the company Insiders own 21% of Surface Transforms

If you want to know who really controls Surface Transforms Plc (LON:SCE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 50% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And institutional investors saw their holdings value drop by 11% last week. Needless to say, the recent loss which further adds to the one-year loss to shareholders of 8.7% might not go down well especially with this category of shareholders. Often called “market makers”, institutions wield significant power in influencing the price dynamics of any stock. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Surface Transforms, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Surface Transforms  ownership-breakdown

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Surface Transforms?

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.

We can see that Surface Transforms does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. 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 Surface Transforms, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

 earnings-and-revenue-growth

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 Surface Transforms. Richard Sneller is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. Unicorn Asset Management Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 7.4% of common stock, and Canaccord Genuity Wealth (International) Limited holds about 7.3% of the company stock.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 8 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Surface Transforms

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 a reasonable proportion of Surface Transforms Plc. It has a market capitalization of just UK£82m, and insiders have UK£17m worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 29% 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Surface Transforms better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted  3 warning signs for Surface Transforms  (of which 1 is concerning!) you should know about.

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this freereport 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content?Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.

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