What Kind Of Shareholders Hold The Majority In Harvard Bioscience, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:HBIO) Shares?

If you want to know who really controls Harvard Bioscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:HBIO), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, 'Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

Harvard Bioscience is a smaller company with a market capitalization of US$165m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Harvard Bioscience.

Check out our latest analysis for Harvard Bioscience

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Harvard Bioscience?

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 Harvard Bioscience 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 Harvard Bioscience'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. Harvard Bioscience is not owned by hedge funds. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 7.6% of shares outstanding. With 6.5% and 5.2% of the shares outstanding respectively, Chane Graziano and Dimensional Fund Advisors L.P. are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO James Green is the owner of 1.7% of the company's shares.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 12 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 Harvard Bioscience

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.

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 a reasonable proportion of Harvard Bioscience, Inc.. Insiders own US$18m worth of shares in the US$165m company. I would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 19% stake in Harvard Bioscience. 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 Harvard Bioscience better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Harvard Bioscience that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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