Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) is largely controlled by institutional shareholders who own 84% of the company

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Wix.com's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 12 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

Every investor in Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 84% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

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

View our latest analysis for Wix.com

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Wix.com?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Wix.com. 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 Wix.com's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Wix.com. Baillie Gifford & Co. is currently the largest shareholder, with 14% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 6.3% and 4.2%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Furthermore, CEO Avishai Abrahami is the owner of 1.6% of the company's shares.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 12 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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 Wix.com

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

We can see that insiders own shares in Wix.com Ltd.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$153m. Most would see this as a real positive. It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 13% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Wix.com. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Wix.com better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Wix.com .

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.