Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Intellia Therapeutics' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 11 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Recent sales by insiders

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 86% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And institutional investors saw their holdings value drop by 6.1% last week. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 45% for shareholders. Often called "market movers", institutions wield significant power in influencing the price dynamics of any stock. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Intellia Therapeutics, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

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

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Intellia Therapeutics?

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 Intellia Therapeutics. 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. 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 Intellia Therapeutics' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Intellia Therapeutics is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is ARK Investment Management LLC with 11% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 9.3% of common stock, and The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds about 8.7% of the company stock. Furthermore, CEO John Leonard is the owner of 0.9% of the company's shares.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 11 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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

Insider Ownership Of Intellia Therapeutics

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. 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.

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 Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth US$24m. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 13% 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. Be aware that Intellia Therapeutics is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.