Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Royal Caribbean Cruises' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• A total of 5 investors have a majority stake in the company with 53% ownership

If you want to know who really controls Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL), 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 84% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 3.8% last week. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 79%.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Royal Caribbean Cruises.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Royal Caribbean Cruises?

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.

Royal Caribbean Cruises 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 Royal Caribbean Cruises, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Royal Caribbean Cruises is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Capital Research and Management Company, with ownership of 27%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 11% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.9% by the third-largest shareholder.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 5 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Royal Caribbean Cruises

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.

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.

Our information suggests that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. insiders own under 1% of the company. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we haven't picked up on. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own US$251m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 11% stake in Royal Caribbean Cruises. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 4.8%, of the Royal Caribbean Cruises stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Royal Caribbean Cruises better, we need to consider many other factors.

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.

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.