In This Article:
Key Insights
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Significant control over Plug Power by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
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A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 46% ownership
If you want to know who really controls Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ:PLUG), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 46% to be precise, is retail investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
While retail investors were the group that reaped the most benefits after last week’s 15% price gain, institutions also received a 40% cut.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Plug Power, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for Plug Power
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Plug Power?
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.
Plug Power already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Plug Power's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
Hedge funds don't have many shares in Plug Power. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.1% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.3% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 7.6% by the third-largest shareholder.
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.
While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.
Insider Ownership Of Plug Power
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.