Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Preformed Line Products' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• 53% of the business is held by the top 6 shareholders
• Insiders own 12% of Preformed Line Products

If you want to know who really controls Preformed Line Products Company (NASDAQ:PLPC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 46% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Last week's US$65m market cap gain would probably be appreciated by institutional investors, especially after a year of 28% losses.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Preformed Line Products, beginning with the chart below.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Preformed Line Products?

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.

We can see that Preformed Line Products 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 Preformed Line Products' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Preformed Line Products. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Barbara P Ruhlman Revocable Trust with 16% of shares outstanding. With 12% and 7.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, Third Restatement of Barbara P. Ruhlman Trust and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP are the second and third largest shareholders.

We also observed that the top 6 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Preformed Line Products

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. 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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Preformed Line Products Company. Insiders own US$73m worth of shares in the US$591m company. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 13% stake in Preformed Line Products. 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 29%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com