A total of 8 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership

If you want to know who really controls Universal Store Holdings Limited (ASX:UNI), 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 54% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot 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.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Universal Store Holdings.

Check out our latest analysis for Universal Store Holdings

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.

We can see that Universal Store Holdings does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. 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 Universal Store Holdings' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Universal Store Holdings. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Bennelong Funds Management Group Pty Ltd with 14% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.8% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.5% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Alice Barbery, the CEO has 2.8% of the shares allocated to their name.