Non-financial companies, banks and the public sector increased their share ownership in the Spanish stock market at the end of 2023, with international investors continuing to control nearly half of its capitalization. This is reflected in the Report on the Ownership of Listed Spanish Shares published today by BME’s Research Department.
As the report points out, public sector participation in the stock market reached its highest level (16.6%) in 1992, when the privatization process of a large number of public companies began, which reduced it to residual levels (0.6%). However, this dynamic has been reversing in the last decade after the public aid to some banking entities and the maintenance and revaluation of relevant participations in listed companies, until reaching the current figures which place its weight at 3.3%, valued at some 23,000 million euros. The data in the report refer to the end of 2023, so they do not yet include the successive acquisitions of Telefónica shares up to at least 10% of the capital carried out as early as 2024.
Another noteworthy fact is the large presence of non-resident investors in the Spanish stock market, with 49% of capitalization, a drop of 1.3 percentage points compared to last year. Once again this year, the comparative data on the participation of international investors in unlisted and listed companies stands out. In the former, foreign investors hold an average of 25%, compared with 48.7% in listed companies, which shows that being listed on the stock market is attractive to international investors.
In this category, sovereign wealth funds such as the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which at the end of 2023 had a stake of close to €12.5 billion in the Spanish stock market, the QIA Qatar fund (€7.1 billion), Japan’s GPIF (close to €3.2 billion) and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC (€1.6 billion), are gaining increasing weight. As for the large international fund managers, BlackRock, which has €30.6 billion in Spanish listed companies, Vanguard Group with more than €21.8 billion, and Fidelity with almost €9.5 billion stand out, among others.
In the case of families, the report reveals that their participation in the Spanish stock market increased by two tenths in 2023 to 16.4%. Some 12.5% of Spanish households own shares in listed companies, which represents a figure of 2.4 million families, according to figures from the latest Financial Survey of Families, prepared by the Bank of Spain. Although the accumulated financial assets in the hands of Spanish households reached €2.83 trillion, 5.8% more than in 2022 and a growth of 40% compared to a decade ago, it continues to maintain a high concentration in bank deposits.
Finally, non-financial companies control 21.9% of the Spanish stock market, nine tenths more than a year ago and a nine-year record; banks and savings banks reach a 3.5% share after a rebound of 4 tenths and Collective Investment Institutions, insurance and other non-banking financial institutions control 5.9% of total listed shares, the same percentage as a year earlier.
