Recent uptick might appease Bandwidth Inc. (NASDAQ:BAND) institutional owners after losing 31% over the past year

Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Bandwidth's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 19 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Insiders have been selling lately

Our free stock report includes 1 warning sign investors should be aware of before investing in Bandwidth. Read for free now.

If you want to know who really controls Bandwidth Inc. (NASDAQ:BAND), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 65% stake, institutions 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.

Institutional investors would appreciate the 11% increase in share price last week, given their one-year losses have totalled a disappointing 31%.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Bandwidth

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Bandwidth?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Bandwidth. 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 Bandwidth'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. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Bandwidth. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 6.6% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 6.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.7% by the third-largest shareholder.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 19 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Bandwidth

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Bandwidth Inc.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$26m worth of the US$377m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 20% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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 Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 3.7%, 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:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Bandwidth .

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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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.