Yahoo Finance Activision Blizzard, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ATVI) latest 12% decline adds to one-year losses, institutional investors may consider drastic measures
Key Insights
Significantly high institutional ownership implies Activision Blizzard's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
The top 25 shareholders own 50% of the company
To get a sense of who is truly in control of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 76% 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.
As a result, institutional investors endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by US$8.3b. Needless to say, the recent loss which further adds to the one-year loss to shareholders of 3.5% might not go down well especially with this category of 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 decline continues, institutional investors may be pressured to sell Activision Blizzard which might hurt individual investors.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Activision Blizzard, beginning with the chart below.
See our latest analysis for Activision Blizzard
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Activision Blizzard?
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 Activision Blizzard. 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. 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 Activision Blizzard's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
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 Activision Blizzard. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 7.9% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.7% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Robert Kotick, the CEO has 0.5% of the shares allocated to their name.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 25 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.
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 Activision Blizzard
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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Activision Blizzard, Inc. in their own names. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own US$451m of stock. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 16% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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.
Public Company Ownership
We can see that public companies hold 6.7% of the Activision Blizzard shares on issue. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.
Next Steps:
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Activision Blizzard .
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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