Yahoo Finance Institutional investors may adopt severe steps after Vista Outdoor Inc.'s (NYSE:VSTO) latest 7.7% drop adds to a year losses
A look at the shareholders of Vista Outdoor Inc. (NYSE:VSTO) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 78% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
And institutional investors endured the highest losses after the company's share price fell by 7.7% last week. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 41% for shareholders. Also referred to as "smart money", institutions have a lot of sway over how a stock's price moves. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Vista Outdoor, which might have negative implications on individual investors.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Vista Outdoor, beginning with the chart below.
See our latest analysis for Vista Outdoor
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Vista Outdoor?
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 Vista Outdoor does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Vista Outdoor's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. It looks like hedge funds own 9.9% of Vista Outdoor shares. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. Our data shows that BlackRock, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. With 9.9% and 8.3% of the shares outstanding respectively, Gates Capital Management, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders. Additionally, the company's CEO Christopher Metz directly holds 0.8% of the total shares outstanding.
We also observed that the top 9 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
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 Vista Outdoor
The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 Vista Outdoor Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$20m. Most would see this as a real positive. If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 11% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Vista Outdoor. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
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. Be aware that Vista Outdoor is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those shouldn't be ignored...
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.
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