Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY)'s stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 16 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls Northfield Bancorp, Inc. (Staten Island, NY) (NASDAQ:NFBK), 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 67% 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.

Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY).

Check out our latest analysis for Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY)

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY)?

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.

Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY) 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 Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY), (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. Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY) is not owned by hedge funds. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 10% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.5% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Steven Klein, the CEO has 1.4% of the shares allocated to their name.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 16 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY)

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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 Northfield Bancorp, Inc. (Staten Island, NY). It has a market capitalization of just US$583m, and insiders have US$29m worth of shares, in their own names. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

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 Northfield Bancorp (Staten Island NY) better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

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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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.