With 80% ownership in The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE:GEO), institutional investors have a lot riding on the business

A look at the shareholders of The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE:GEO) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 80% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And last week, institutional investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit US$1.5b in market cap. The one-year return on investment is currently 61% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

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

Our analysis indicates that GEO is potentially undervalued!

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About GEO Group?

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 GEO Group 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at GEO Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in GEO Group. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 15%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 11% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.3% by the third-largest shareholder.

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 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 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 GEO Group

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in The GEO Group, Inc.. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own US$49m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 17% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over GEO Group. 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand GEO Group better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for GEO Group you should be aware of, and 1 of them shouldn't be ignored.

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.