While individual investors own 27% of Hannover Rück SE (ETR:HNR1), private companies are its largest shareholders with 50% ownership

editorial-team@simplywallst.com (Simply Wall St)

Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:56 AM 4 min read

If you want to know who really controls Hannover Rück SE (ETR:HNR1), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that private companies own the lion's share in the company with 50% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And individual investors on the other hand have a 27% ownership in the company.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Hannover Rück

ownership-breakdown — XTRA:HNR1 Ownership Breakdown February 10th 2025

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hannover Rück?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Hannover Rück. 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. 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 Hannover Rück, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

earnings-and-revenue-growth — XTRA:HNR1 Earnings and Revenue Growth February 10th 2025

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Hannover Rück. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is HDI Haftpflichtverband der Deutschen Industrie V.a.G. with 50% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. The second and third largest shareholders are Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management and FMR LLC, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 3.0%.

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 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 Hannover Rück

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. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 27% 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.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 50%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

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.

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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.