Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies First Financial Bancorp's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 8 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Insiders have been selling lately

If you want to know who really controls First Financial Bancorp. (NASDAQ:FFBC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 80% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

No shareholder likes losing money on their investments, especially institutional investors who saw their holdings drop 4.2% in value last week. However, the 18% one-year return to shareholders may have helped lessen their pain. But they would probably be wary of future losses.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of First Financial Bancorp.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About First Financial Bancorp?

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.

First Financial Bancorp already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see First Financial Bancorp's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in First Financial Bancorp. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 7.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP are the second and third largest shareholders.

We did some more digging and found that 8 of the top shareholders account for roughly 51% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of First Financial Bancorp

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in First Financial Bancorp.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$57m. Most would see this as a real positive. If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 18% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over First Financial Bancorp. 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. Be aware that First Financial Bancorp is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.