What Percentage Of Apollo Endosurgery, Inc. (NASDAQ:APEN) Shares Do Insiders Own?

Every investor in Apollo Endosurgery, Inc. (NASDAQ:APEN) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Apollo Endosurgery is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$164m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Apollo Endosurgery.

See our latest analysis for Apollo Endosurgery

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Apollo Endosurgery?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

We can see that Apollo Endosurgery does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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. 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 Apollo Endosurgery's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

It looks like hedge funds own 18% of Apollo Endosurgery shares. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is CPMG, Inc. with 12% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 10% of the shares outstanding respectively, PTV Healthcare Capital and Laurence Lytton are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO Todd Newton is the owner of 1.2% of the company's shares.

On looking further, we found that 51% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of 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. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.

Insider Ownership Of Apollo Endosurgery

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.

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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Apollo Endosurgery, Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just US$164m, and insiders have US$26m worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 18% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Apollo Endosurgery. 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.

Private Equity Ownership

With a stake of 16%, private equity firms could influence the Apollo Endosurgery board. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Apollo Endosurgery better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 3 warning signs for Apollo Endosurgery that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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