January 5, 2025
Every investor in BCE Inc. ( TSE:BCE ) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 59% to be precise, is individual investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
While individual investors were the group that benefitted the most from last week’s CA$1.6b market cap gain, institutions too had a 41% share in those profits.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of BCE.
Check out our latest analysis for BCE
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 BCE 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 BCE's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
BCE is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is BMO Asset Management Corp. with 3.7% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 2.6% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 2.3% by the third-largest shareholder.
A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.
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.
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 BCE Inc. in their own names. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own CA$16m of stock. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.
The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 59% stake in BCE, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for BCE (of which 2 can't be ignored!) you should know about.
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.
