Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Stellar Bancorp's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• A total of 23 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Recent sales by insiders

If you want to know who really controls Stellar Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:STEL), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 56% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Losing money on investments is something no shareholder enjoys, least of all institutional investors who saw their holdings value drop by 3.7% last week. However, the 5.3% one-year returns may have helped alleviate their overall losses. They should, however, be mindful of further losses in the future.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Stellar Bancorp.

See our latest analysis for Stellar Bancorp

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Stellar Bancorp?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Stellar Bancorp. 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 Stellar Bancorp's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Stellar Bancorp. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 14% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 6.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.8% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Robert Franklin, the CEO has 0.8% of the shares allocated to their name.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 23 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Stellar Bancorp

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Stellar Bancorp, Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$143m. Most would see this as a real positive. If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 35% 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Stellar Bancorp you should be aware of, and 1 of them doesn't sit too well with us.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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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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.