Two arms of financial services giant Capital Group have built a combined 20.8% stake in Royal Caribbean Group as they snapped up shares in a recovering cruise market.
Their positions in the world’s second-largest owner of cruise ships could put them at the top of the company’s shareholder rolls, and they are worth a combined $4.53bn at today’s prices for Royal Caribbean shares.
Capital International Investors has doubled its holdings in the shipowner, with records showing that it has built a stake worth more than $2.59bn as the cruise giant works to recover from the pandemic.
The institutional investor, an arm of Los Angeles financial services giant Capital Group, told the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday that it controlled more than 29.2m of Royal Caribbean’s New York-listed shares at the end of 2021.
That gives Capital International an 11.5% stake in the world’s second-largest cruise shipping group, though only 28.7m of the shares give the firm sole voting power.
The move represents a significant leap in the firm’s investment in Miami-based Royal Caribbean this time last year, when Capital International said it owned just under 14m shares that gave it a 6.2% stake at the time.
The firm’s swelled stake in its latest reporting means it could be Royal Caribbean’s largest shareholder. When the cruise ship owner last filed its annual proxy statement to the SEC, Norway’s Awilhelmsen was the largest shareholder with a 9.1% holding.
Capital International has leap-frogged its sister company, Capital Research Global Investors, which had controlled 8.56% of Royal Caribbean as of the April 2021 proxy statement.
Capital Research controls 9.3%
On Friday, Capital Research said it owned 23.7m shares in the cruise giant as of 31 December, which translates to a 9.3% stake.
The two Capital Group firms operate as separate, equities-focussed investment managers. Overall, the group oversees a portfolio of some $2.6trn assets under management.
Founding shareholder Awilhelmsen, the holding company of Norway’s Wilhelmsen family, has reduced its stake in Royal Caribbean over the years.
