Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) is a favorite amongst institutional investors who own 58%

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editorial-team@simplywallst.com (Simply Wall St)

Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 6:01 AM 4 min read

Every investor in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 58% to be precise, is institutions. 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. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Berkshire Hathaway, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Berkshire Hathaway

ownership-breakdown — NYSE:BRK.A Ownership Breakdown March 30th 2025

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Berkshire Hathaway?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Berkshire Hathaway. 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Berkshire Hathaway's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

earnings-and-revenue-growth — NYSE:BRK.A Earnings and Revenue Growth March 30th 2025

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Berkshire Hathaway is not owned by hedge funds. With a 14% stake, CEO Warren Buffett is the largest shareholder. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.1% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 5.2% of the company stock.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Berkshire Hathaway

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.. Insiders own US$167b worth of shares in the US$1.1t company. That's quite meaningful. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish to access this free chart showing recent trading by insiders.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 27% stake in Berkshire Hathaway. 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 Berkshire Hathaway better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Berkshire Hathaway .

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

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.