Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Eastern implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• A total of 8 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• Insiders have bought recently

To get a sense of who is truly in control of The Eastern Company (NASDAQ:EML), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 63% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

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

View our latest analysis for Eastern

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Eastern?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Eastern. 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. 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 Eastern's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. It would appear that 10% of Eastern shares are controlled by hedge funds. That's interesting, because hedge funds can be quite active and activist. Many look for medium term catalysts that will drive the share price higher. GAMCO Investors, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 11% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 10% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 8.1% by the third-largest shareholder.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 8 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Eastern

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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in The Eastern Company. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$12m worth of the US$174m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board, though we generally prefer to see bigger insider holdings. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 20% stake in Eastern. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

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. Be aware that Eastern is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.