Yahoo Finance Institutional investors may adopt severe steps after AbCellera Biologics Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ABCL) latest 9.9% drop adds to a year losses
Key Insights
Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, AbCellera Biologics' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
The top 9 shareholders own 50% of the company
If you want to know who really controls AbCellera Biologics Inc. (NASDAQ:ABCL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 45% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
And so it follows that institutional investors was the group most impacted after the company's market cap fell to US$2.2b last week after a 9.9% drop in the share price. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 2.6% for shareholders. Often called “market makers”, institutions wield significant power in influencing the price dynamics of any stock. As a result, if the decline continues, institutional investors may be pressured to sell AbCellera Biologics which might hurt individual investors.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of AbCellera Biologics.
View our latest analysis for AbCellera Biologics
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About AbCellera Biologics?
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.
We can see that AbCellera Biologics does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 AbCellera Biologics' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in AbCellera Biologics. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Carl Hansen with 20% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 6.8% and 4.8% of the stock.
We did some more digging and found that 9 of the top shareholders account for roughly 50% of the register, implying that along with larger shareholders, there are a few smaller shareholders, thereby balancing out each others interests somewhat.
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 AbCellera Biologics
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. 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.
Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of AbCellera Biologics Inc.. It is very interesting to see that insiders have a meaningful US$593m stake in this US$2.2b business. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish to access this free chart showing recent trading by insiders.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 28% 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.
Next Steps:
It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand AbCellera Biologics better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that AbCellera Biologics is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...
If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.
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.
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