What You Need To Know About Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AGLE) Investor Composition

A look at the shareholders of Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AGLE) can tell us which group is most powerful. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

Aeglea BioTherapeutics is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of US$367m, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Aeglea BioTherapeutics.

See our latest analysis for Aeglea BioTherapeutics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Aeglea BioTherapeutics?

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

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. It would appear that 13% of Aeglea BioTherapeutics shares are controlled by hedge funds. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. OrbiMed Advisors LLC is currently the company's largest shareholder with 8.4% of shares outstanding. Baker Bros. Advisors LP is the second largest shareholder owning 7.1% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.8% of the company stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Anthony Quinn directly holds 1.1% of the total shares outstanding.

We did some more digging and found that 9 of the top shareholders account for roughly 53% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.

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 Aeglea BioTherapeutics

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Inc.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$4.7m worth of the US$367m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 10% stake in Aeglea BioTherapeutics. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 19% stake in Aeglea BioTherapeutics. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Aeglea BioTherapeutics is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 3 of those are concerning...

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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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