How Much Of ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZIOP) Do Institutions Own?

A look at the shareholders of ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZIOP) can tell us which group is most powerful. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. Companies that have been privatized tend to have low insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of US$918m, ZIOPHARM Oncology is a decent size, so it is probably on the radar of institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about ZIOPHARM Oncology.

See our latest analysis for ZIOPHARM Oncology

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ZIOPHARM Oncology?

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

It would appear that 13% of ZIOPHARM Oncology shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc. with 8.7% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.5% and 7.1% of the stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 13 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. 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 ZIOPHARM Oncology

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$28m worth of stock in the US$918m 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

With a 39% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over ZIOPHARM Oncology. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand ZIOPHARM Oncology better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that ZIOPHARM Oncology is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is potentially serious...

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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