Individual investors who hold 60% of Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) gained 30%, institutions profited as well

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Marathon Digital Holdings indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 33% ownership
• 39% of Marathon Digital Holdings is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 60% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

While individual investors were the group that reaped the most benefits after last week’s 30% price gain, institutions also received a 39% cut.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Marathon Digital Holdings, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Marathon Digital Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Marathon Digital Holdings?

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.

Marathon Digital Holdings 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. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Marathon Digital Holdings' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Marathon Digital Holdings. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 8.8% of shares outstanding. With 6.4% and 3.2% of the shares outstanding respectively, BlackRock, Inc. and Jane Street Group, LLC, Asset Management Arm are the second and third largest shareholders.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Marathon Digital Holdings

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 information suggests that Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. insiders own under 1% of the company. It's a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own US$35m worth of shares. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 60% stake in Marathon Digital Holdings, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Marathon Digital Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Marathon Digital Holdings that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.