Treasury Wine Estates' significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Treasury Wine Estates Limited (ASX:TWE), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 59% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Individual investors gained the most after market cap touched AU$9.3b last week, while institutions who own 39% also benefitted.

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

View our latest analysis for Treasury Wine Estates

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.

Treasury Wine Estates already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Treasury Wine Estates, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Treasury Wine Estates is not owned by hedge funds. State Street Global Advisors, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 8.5% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 5.3% and 4.8%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

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.

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.