Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Bel Fuse implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 16 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

If you want to know who really controls Bel Fuse Inc. (NASDAQ:BELF.A), 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 77% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. As a result, a sizeable amount of institutional money invested in a firm is generally viewed as a positive attribute.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Bel Fuse

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Bel Fuse?

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.

Bel Fuse 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Bel Fuse, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Bel Fuse. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 7.7% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.2% and 6.9% of the stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Daniel Bernstein directly holds 3.3% of the total shares outstanding.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 16 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Bel Fuse

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.

We can see that insiders own shares in Bel Fuse Inc.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own US$66m worth of the US$985m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 16% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Bel Fuse. 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 Bel Fuse better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.