Key Insights

• XBiotech's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

• A total of 7 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership

• Insiders own 44% of XBiotech

A look at the shareholders of XBiotech Inc. (NASDAQ:XBIT) can tell us which group is most powerful. 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).

Individual insiders, on the other hand, account for 44% of the company's stockholders. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies.

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

Check out our latest analysis for XBiotech

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About XBiotech?

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.

XBiotech already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 XBiotech's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

XBiotech is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO John Simard with 22% of shares outstanding. Thomas Gut is the second largest shareholder owning 13% of common stock, and W. McKenzie holds about 8.5% of the company stock. Interestingly, the third-largest shareholder, W. McKenzie is also a Member of the Board of Directors, again, indicating strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.

We also observed that the top 7 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.