The big shareholder groups in Fisker Inc. (NYSE:FSR) have power over the company. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. 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.

Fisker has a market capitalization of US$4.3b, so it's too big to fly under the radar. We'd expect to see both institutions and retail investors owning a portion of the company. 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 Fisker.

Check out our latest analysis for Fisker

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Fisker?

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 Fisker 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. 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 Fisker's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Fisker. With a 24% stake, CEO Henrik Fisker is the largest shareholder. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 24% and 4.7%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Interestingly, the second-largest shareholder, Geeta Gupta-Fisker is also Top Key Executive, again, pointing towards strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.

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.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Fisker

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. 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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Fisker Inc. stock. This gives them a lot of power. Insiders own US$2.2b worth of shares in the US$4.3b company. That's extraordinary! Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if they have been selling down their stake.

General Public Ownership

The general public holds a 37% stake in Fisker. 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:

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 Fisker is showing 3 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those don't sit too well with us...

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.

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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