Every investor in Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE:UTI) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, ‘Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.
Universal Technical Institute is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of US$235m, which means it wouldn’t have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Universal Technical Institute.
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What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Universal Technical Institute?
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.
Universal Technical Institute already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can’t rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Universal Technical Institute’s historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there’s always more to the story.
Our data indicates that hedge funds own 35% of Universal Technical Institute. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. The company’s largest shareholder is Park West Asset Management LLC, with ownership of 9.1%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.1% and 6.3% of the stock.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company’s shares are owned by the top 9 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.
Insider Ownership Of Universal Technical Institute
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.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Universal Technical Institute, Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just US$235m, and insiders have US$13m worth of shares, in their own names. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 11% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Universal Technical Institute. 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 Universal Technical Institute better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we’ve spotted 1 warning sign for Universal Technical Institute 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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