Beneficial vs manager

Every ownership query in Dataflow, REST or MCP, runs in one of two modes, because "who owns this?" has two correct answers.

Beneficial

Who ultimately benefits from the position?

The beneficial view attributes positions to the end owner: the family that owns through a holding company, the institution behind a chain of entities, the state behind a sovereign fund. Use it for questions about control, influence and disclosure: "who really owns this company?" In the Nordics, this is the main perspective for looking at ownership data.

Manager

Which fund or asset manager controls the position?

The manager view attributes positions to the nearest visible professional manager: the fund company, the asset manager running the mandate. Use it for questions about flows and investor relations: "which institutions are buying?", "who do we invite to the roadshow?" In the UK, this is the main perspective for looking at ownership data.

The same shares, two views

A single real-world position appears in both views with different attribution. The numbers won't reconcile between modes. That's by design; they answer different questions.

In practice:

• REST: mode is in the path, /equity/ownership/beneficial/tier-one vs /equity/ownership/manager/tier-one (same for base and the trend endpoints).
• MCP: every ownership tool takes a mode parameter, "beneficial" or "manager". Omit it and the tool uses your organisation's default (see below).
• Pricing (MCP): the two modes have separate pricing keys, so your contract may price them differently.

Your organisation's default (MCP)

MCP tools that take mode fall back to your organisation's configured default perspective when the parameter is omitted: beneficial unless configured otherwise. UK-focused organisations are typically configured for manager, matching how UK ownership data is disclosed. An explicit mode always wins, and the tool schemas your MCP client sees advertise the default your calls actually get.