Key Insights

• Significant control over Humacyte by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 20 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Insiders have been buying lately

If you want to know who really controls Humacyte, Inc. (NASDAQ:HUMA), 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 retail investors with 44% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While the holdings of retail investors took a hit after last week's 14% price drop, institutions with their 26% holdings also suffered.

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

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Humacyte?

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.

We can see that Humacyte does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Humacyte's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Humacyte. Fresenius Medical Care AG is currently the company's largest shareholder with 15% of shares outstanding. Gavril Yushvaev is the second largest shareholder owning 7.5% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.0% of the company stock.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 20 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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 Humacyte

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Humacyte, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$73m worth of stock in the US$734m company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 44% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 4.8%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 15% of Humacyte. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 6 warning signs we've spotted with Humacyte (including 3 which are concerning) .

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.