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To get a sense of who is truly in control of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 63% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
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.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Verizon Communications.
Check out our latest analysis for Verizon Communications
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Verizon Communications?
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.
We can see that Verizon Communications 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 Verizon Communications' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Verizon Communications is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc., with ownership of 8.3%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.6% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.9% by the third-largest shareholder.
On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.
Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.
Insider Ownership Of Verizon Communications
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.