Yahoo Finance GoPro, Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRO) is largely controlled by institutional shareholders who own 54% of the company
Key Insights
Institutions' substantial holdings in GoPro implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
50% of the business is held by the top 12 shareholders
A look at the shareholders of GoPro, Inc. (NASDAQ:GPRO) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 54% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of GoPro.
See our latest analysis for GoPro
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About GoPro?
Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.
We can see that GoPro does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of GoPro, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in GoPro. With a 17% stake, CEO Nicholas Woodman is the largest shareholder. The second and third largest shareholders are The Vanguard Group, Inc. and BlackRock, Inc., with an equal amount of shares to their name at 8.3%.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 12 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.
While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.
Insider Ownership Of GoPro
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
It seems insiders own a significant proportion of GoPro, Inc.. Insiders have a US$46m stake in this US$253m business. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
With a 28% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over GoPro. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand GoPro better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for GoPro that you should be aware of before investing here.
Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
