Yahoo Finance The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC) is favoured by institutional owners who hold 52% of the company
Key Insights
Institutions' substantial holdings in Kraft Heinz implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
51% of the business is held by the top 9 shareholders
If you want to know who really controls The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ:KHC), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 52% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).
Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with 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 Kraft Heinz, beginning with the chart below.
View our latest analysis for Kraft Heinz
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Kraft Heinz?
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.
Kraft Heinz 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. 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 Kraft Heinz, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Kraft Heinz is not owned by hedge funds. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 27% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.5% and 5.8%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.
We also observed that the top 9 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.
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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.
Insider Ownership Of Kraft Heinz
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.
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 information suggests that The Kraft Heinz Company insiders own under 1% of the company. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own US$123m of stock. In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 21% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Kraft Heinz. 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 27% of the Kraft Heinz 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:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Kraft Heinz better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Kraft Heinz you should know about.
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.
