Niagen Bioscience, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:NAGE) market cap dropped US$129m last week; individual investors who hold 33% were hit as were institutions

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Niagen Bioscience indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• 50% of the business is held by the top 10 shareholders
• Insider ownership in Niagen Bioscience is 30%

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If you want to know who really controls Niagen Bioscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:NAGE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 33% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While the holdings of individual investors took a hit after last week’s 15% price drop, institutions with their 33% holdings also suffered.

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

See our latest analysis for Niagen Bioscience

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Niagen Bioscience?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Niagen Bioscience does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 Niagen Bioscience, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Niagen Bioscience. Our data shows that Hoi Shuen Chau is the largest shareholder with 24% of shares outstanding. With 4.8% and 4.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, Nestlé S.A. and BlackRock, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO Robert Fried is the owner of 2.1% of the company's shares.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Niagen Bioscience

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Niagen Bioscience, Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just US$764m, and insiders have US$228m 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

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 33% stake in Niagen Bioscience. 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.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 4.8% of Niagen Bioscience stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Niagen Bioscience better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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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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.