Sunday, September 18, 2022

Palantir Technologies Inc.'s top owners are

individual investors with 52% stake, 

while33% is held by institutions


Simply Wall St 

Every investor in Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 52% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Institutions, on the other hand, account for 33% of the company's stockholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Palantir Technologies.

View our latest analysis for Palantir Technologies


ownership-breakdown
ownership-breakdown

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Palantir Technologies?

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.

We can see that Palantir Technologies does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Palantir Technologies' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Palantir Technologies. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 7.7% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.1% and 4.4%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Peter Thiel, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Top Key Executive. Additionally, the company's CEO Alexander Karp directly holds 2.6% of the total shares outstanding.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 Palantir Technologies

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Palantir Technologies Inc.. Insiders own US$1.7b worth of shares in the US$16b company. That's quite meaningful. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 52% of Palantir Technologies shares. With this amount of ownership, retail investors can collectively play a role in decisions that affect shareholder returns, such as dividend policies and the appointment of directors. They can also exercise the power to vote on acquisitions or mergers that may not improve profitability.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 4.0% of Palantir Technologies. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Palantir Technologies is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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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