An excellent week for Occidental Petroleum Corporation's (NYSE:OXY) institutional owners who own 52% as one-year ... - Yahoo Finance

An excellent week for Occidental Petroleum Corporation's (NYSE:OXY) institutional owners who own 52% as one-year returns inch higher

Key Insights
Institutions' substantial holdings in Occidental Petroleum implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
53% of the business is held by the top 5 shareholders
Ownership research along with
analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Occidental Petroleum Corporation ( NYSE:OXY), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 52% 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.

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained US$2.1b in market cap last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 0.8% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Occidental Petroleum.

See our latest analysis for Occidental Petroleum

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Occidental Petroleum?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Occidental Petroleum. 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 Occidental Petroleum's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Investors should note that institutions actually own more than half the company, so they can collectively wield significant power. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Occidental Petroleum. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Berkshire Hathaway Inc. with 28% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 9.2% and 6.5%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 5 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

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 are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Occidental Petroleum

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.

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.

Our data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Occidental Petroleum Corporation in their own names. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own US$164m worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

With a 19% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Occidental Petroleum. 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 28% of the Occidental Petroleum 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:

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. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Occidental Petroleum you should be aware of.

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.