Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Voyager Therapeutics' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 6 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Recent sales by insiders

A look at the shareholders of Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 43% to be precise, is institutions. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Last week’s 11% gain means that institutional investors were on the positive end of the spectrum even as the company has shown strong longer-term trends. One-year return to shareholders is currently 18% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.

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

View our latest analysis for Voyager Therapeutics

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Voyager Therapeutics?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

Voyager Therapeutics 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. 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 Voyager Therapeutics' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

It would appear that 18% of Voyager Therapeutics shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 19% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 9.5% and 8.8%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 6 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Voyager Therapeutics

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 Voyager Therapeutics, Inc.. In their own names, insiders own US$12m worth of stock in the US$319m company. 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, who are usually individual investors, hold a 16% stake in Voyager Therapeutics. 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 19% of the Voyager Therapeutics shares on issue. 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Voyager Therapeutics better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Voyager Therapeutics (including 1 which is significant) .

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.

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.