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Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in AIXTRON implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• 50% of the business is held by the top 17 shareholders

• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

A look at the shareholders of AIXTRON SE (ETR:AIXA) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 67% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Institutional investors endured the highest losses after the company's market cap fell by €327m last week. However, the 23% one-year returns may have helped alleviate their overall losses. But they would probably be wary of future losses.

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

View our latest analysis for AIXTRON

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About AIXTRON?

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.

We can see that AIXTRON 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 AIXTRON, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in AIXTRON. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 5.3% of shares outstanding. Invesco Ltd. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.0% of common stock, and Bank of America Corporation, Asset Management Arm holds about 4.8% of the company stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 17 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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.