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Do Insiders Own Lots Of Shares In Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO)?

If you want to know who really controls Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said ‘Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.’

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$463m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let’s take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about INO.

View our latest analysis for Inovio Pharmaceuticals

NasdaqGS:INO Ownership Summary December 17th 18
NasdaqGS:INO Ownership Summary December 17th 18

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Inovio Pharmaceuticals?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

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Inovio Pharmaceuticals already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own 35% of the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can’t rely on that fact alone, since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Inovio Pharmaceuticals, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

NasdaqGS:INO Income Statement Export December 17th 18
NasdaqGS:INO Income Statement Export December 17th 18

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is not owned by hedge funds. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Inovio Pharmaceuticals

The definition of company insiders can be subjective, and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves.

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$28m worth of stock in the US$463m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are mostly retail investors, collectively hold 59% of Inovio Pharmaceuticals shares. This level of ownership gives retail investors the power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too.

I always like to check for a history of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart of historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.