How Ownership Concentration Has Increased
Our most recent analysis highlights a global trend toward increased concentration in company ownership.1 Controlled companies accounted for nearly 35% of the MSCI ACWI Index by market capitalization (nearly 46% of constituent companies) as of 2022, a considerable increase from the 26% by market cap (32% of companies) observed in 2015.2 Despite this general trend, we continued to find a wide range of ownership regimes across markets and Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®) sectors.3 The interactive chart below, based on our new report, provides further details on the evolution of company ownership from 2015 to 2022.
How to interact with this plot: Filter ownership data by clicking on a particular sector icon, period and/or drop-down option, and hover over the bars to learn more about ownership trends. Use the clickable legend to select multiple ownership types (use shift-click to restore multiple owner types).
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Ownership and Control 2022
In 2022, the three most common types of strategic shareholders that we track — founders, families and state entities — were either the controlling or principal shareholder at nearly 50% of all MSCI ACWI Index constituents.
Equities Ownership: Concentration on the Rise?
Controlled companies, where more than 30% of the voting power is held by a single entity, accounted for nearly 46% of all constituents of the MSCI ACWI Index, as of Feb. 1, 2022, a 44% increase from 2015 levels.
1 Under our MSCI ESG Ratings methodology, there are three largest-owner classifications used as the basis for this analysis: (i) controlling, whereby the largest shareholder (or group) holds 30% or more of the voting rights; (ii) principal, where the largest shareholder holds between 10% and 30%; and (iii) widely held, where no shareholder holds more than 10%. Please refer to the Ownership and Control 2022 report or the MSCI ESG Ratings Methodology for further details.', 'This is based on data for all MSCI ACWI Index constituents as of May 15, 2015, and Feb. 1, 2022, respectively.', 'GICS® is the global industry classification standard jointly developed by MSCI and S&P Global Market Intelligence.
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