Outlook Therapeutics, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:OTLK) biggest owners are retail investors who got richer after stock soared 14% last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Outlook Therapeutics by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 52% of the business is held by the top 8 shareholders
• Institutional ownership in Outlook Therapeutics is 20%

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To get a sense of who is truly in control of Outlook Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:OTLK), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 42% stake, retail investors 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.

As a result, retail investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit US$103m market cap following a 14% gain in the stock.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Outlook Therapeutics.

View our latest analysis for Outlook Therapeutics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Outlook Therapeutics?

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.

Outlook Therapeutics already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Outlook Therapeutics, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Outlook Therapeutics. The company's largest shareholder is GMS Ventures & Investments, with ownership of 32%. Syntone Technologies Group Co. Ltd. is the second largest shareholder owning 4.0% of common stock, and Armistice Capital LLC holds about 3.7% of the company stock.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 8 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Outlook Therapeutics

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own less than 1% of Outlook Therapeutics, Inc.. We do note, however, it is possible insiders have an indirect interest through a private company or other corporate structure. It seems the board members have no more than US$184k worth of shares in the US$103m company. We generally like to see a board more invested. However it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 42% stake in Outlook Therapeutics. 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 Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 32% stake in Outlook Therapeutics. 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.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 5.9%, of the shares on issue. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Outlook Therapeutics better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks for example - Outlook Therapeutics has 6 warning signs (and 4 which are a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

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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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.