International Bancshares Corporation (NASDAQ:IBOC) is favoured by institutional owners who hold 71% of the company

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, International Bancshares' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• A total of 10 investors have a majority stake in the company with 51% ownership
• Insiders have been selling lately

To get a sense of who is truly in control of International Bancshares Corporation (NASDAQ:IBOC), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 71% 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.

Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of International Bancshares, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for International Bancshares

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About International Bancshares?

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.

International Bancshares 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 International Bancshares, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. International Bancshares is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc. with 11% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 10% and 6.0%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 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. We're not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held.

Insider Ownership Of International Bancshares

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in International Bancshares Corporation. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around US$354m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 20% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over International Bancshares. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand International Bancshares better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for International Bancshares that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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.