Institutional investors are Bank of Marin Bancorp's (NASDAQ:BMRC) biggest bettors and were rewarded after last week's US$34m market cap gain

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Bank of Marin Bancorp implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• 51% of the business is held by the top 21 shareholders
• Recent sales by insiders

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Bank of Marin Bancorp (NASDAQ:BMRC), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 57% 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.

Last week’s 10% gain means that institutional investors were on the positive end of the spectrum even as the company has shown strong longer-term trends. One-year return to shareholders is currently 28% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Bank of Marin Bancorp, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Bank of Marin Bancorp

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Bank of Marin Bancorp?

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 Bank of Marin Bancorp 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. 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 Bank of Marin Bancorp's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Bank of Marin Bancorp is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc. with 10% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.0% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.4% by the third-largest shareholder. Furthermore, CEO Timothy Myers is the owner of 0.5% of the company's shares.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 21 have the combined ownership of 51% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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 Bank of Marin Bancorp

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Bank of Marin Bancorp. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$34m worth of the US$357m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 34% 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.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Bank of Marin Bancorp 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.