Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by retail investors in Carter Bankshares indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 39% ownership
• 43% of Carter Bankshares is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls Carter Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CARE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 53% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And institutions on the other hand have a 43% ownership in the company. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Carter Bankshares, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Carter Bankshares

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Carter Bankshares?

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 Carter Bankshares. 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 Carter Bankshares, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Carter Bankshares. The company's largest shareholder is BlackRock, Inc., with ownership of 7.3%. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 5.5% of common stock, and AllianceBernstein L.P. holds about 5.1% of the company stock.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

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 is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of Carter Bankshares

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.

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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in Carter Bankshares, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$16m worth of stock in the US$401m company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 53% of Carter Bankshares shares. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

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 Carter Bankshares is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.