Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Deluxe implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 8 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Insiders have bought recently

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If you want to know who really controls Deluxe Corporation (NYSE:DLX), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 86% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

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

View our latest analysis for Deluxe

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Deluxe?

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 Deluxe does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Deluxe's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Deluxe is not owned by hedge funds. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 16% of shares outstanding. With 12% and 5.3% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO Barry McCarthy is the owner of 0.6% of the company's shares.

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.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Deluxe

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.

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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in Deluxe Corporation. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$15m worth of the US$726m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

With a 12% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Deluxe. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Deluxe (including 1 which is potentially serious) .

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.

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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.