What Kind Of Investors Own Most Of Pulse Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLSE)?
The big shareholder groups in Pulse Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLSE) have power over the company. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
Pulse Biosciences is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of US$300m, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions own shares in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Pulse Biosciences.
See our latest analysis for Pulse Biosciences
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Pulse Biosciences?
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.
Pulse Biosciences 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. 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 Pulse Biosciences' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.
We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Pulse Biosciences. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Robert Duggan with 45% of shares outstanding. With 3.5% and 2.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders. Furthermore, CEO Darrin Uecker is the owner of 0.5% of the company's shares.
After doing some more digging, we found that the top 3 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.
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. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.
Insider Ownership Of Pulse Biosciences
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. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.
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.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Pulse Biosciences, Inc.. Insiders own US$142m worth of shares in the US$300m company. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 40% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Pulse Biosciences. 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.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Pulse Biosciences better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for Pulse Biosciences (2 are potentially serious!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
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.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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