Here's What CyberOptics Corporation's (NASDAQ:CYBE) Shareholder Ownership Structure Looks Like

Every investor in CyberOptics Corporation (NASDAQ:CYBE) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.

With a market capitalization of US$191m, CyberOptics is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by 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 delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about CyberOptics.

See our latest analysis for CyberOptics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About CyberOptics?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

We can see that CyberOptics 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 CyberOptics' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. CyberOptics is not owned by hedge funds. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.1% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.0% of common stock, and Dimensional Fund Advisors L.P. holds about 5.8% of the company stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Subodh Kulkarni directly holds 1.6% of the total shares outstanding.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 24 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 CyberOptics

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in CyberOptics Corporation. In their own names, insiders own US$7.5m worth of stock in the US$191m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board, though I generally prefer to see bigger insider holdings. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 37% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over CyberOptics. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

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 CyberOptics is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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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