Key Insights

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

• 48% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders

• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

To get a sense of who is truly in control of AIXTRON SE (ETR:AIXA), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 58% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutional investors would probably welcome last week's 5.6% increase in the share price after a year of 27% losses as a sign that returns may to begin trending higher.

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

See 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.

AIXTRON already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in AIXTRON. Bank of America Corporation, Asset Management Arm is currently the largest shareholder, with 4.8% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 3.7% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.5% by the third-largest shareholder.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.