To get a sense of who is truly in control of Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 82% 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.
And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 4.7% last week. One-year return to shareholders is currently 6.6% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.
Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Mondelez International.
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Mondelez International?
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 Mondelez International 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 Mondelez International, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
NasdaqGS:MDLZ Earnings and Revenue Growth April 15th 2025
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Mondelez International. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 10% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.9% by the third-largest shareholder.
Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 22 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.
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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of Mondelez International
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.
Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.
Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Mondelez International, Inc. in their own names. As it is a large company, we'd only expect insiders to own a small percentage of it. But it's worth noting that they own US$142m worth of shares. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.
General Public Ownership
With a 17% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Mondelez International. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
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.
