Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) institutional owners may be pleased with recent gains after 45% loss over the past year

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Warner Bros. Discovery's stock prices are sensitive to their trading actions.
• The top 25 shareholders own 45% of the company
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 56% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

After a year of 45% losses, last week’s 6.3% gain would be welcomed by institutional investors as a likely sign that returns might start trending higher.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Warner Bros. Discovery, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Warner Bros. Discovery

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Warner Bros. Discovery?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Warner Bros. Discovery. 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 Warner Bros. Discovery's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Warner Bros. Discovery. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Advance Publications, Inc. with 8.2% of shares outstanding. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.3% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.7% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Warner Bros. Discovery

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$443m. we sometimes take an interest in whether they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 34% stake in Warner Bros. Discovery. 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.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 8.2%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

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. Be aware that Warner Bros. Discovery is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.