Could The Genie Energy Ltd. (NYSE:GNE) Ownership Structure Tell Us Something Useful?

If you want to know who really controls Genie Energy Ltd. (NYSE:GNE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, 'Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

Genie Energy is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of US$232m, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Genie Energy.

See our latest analysis for Genie Energy

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Genie Energy?

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.

Genie Energy already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Genie Energy's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Genie Energy. Howard Jonas is currently the company's largest shareholder with 6.5% of shares outstanding. With 6.2% and 4.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, The Vanguard Group, Inc. and Dimensional Fund Advisors L.P. are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Michael Stein, the CEO has 0.7% of the shares allocated to his name

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.

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. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Genie Energy

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Genie Energy Ltd.. In their own names, insiders own US$22m worth of stock in the US$232m 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 holds a 50% stake in Genie Energy. 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 5.7%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

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. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Genie Energy that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies.

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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