Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Prudential implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• 50% of the business is held by the top 20 shareholders
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls Prudential plc (LON:PRU), 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 84% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, institutional investors endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by UK£1.1b. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 24% for shareholders. Institutions or "liquidity providers" control large sums of money and therefore, these types of investors usually have a lot of influence over stock price movements. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Prudential, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Prudential.

Check out our latest analysis for Prudential

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Prudential?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that Prudential 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. 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 Prudential's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Prudential. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 9.3% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 4.9% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.7% by the third-largest shareholder.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 20 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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 Prudential

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Prudential plc in their own names. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own UK£4.5m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 14% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Prudential better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Prudential .

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.