Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in General Electric implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price

• The top 13 shareholders own 51% of the company

• Insiders have been selling lately

If you want to know who really controls General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 76% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And things are looking up for institutional investors after the company gained US$7.6b in market cap last week. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 87%.

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

View our latest analysis for General Electric

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About General Electric?

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 General Electric 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 General Electric'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. Hedge funds don't have many shares in General Electric. Capital Research and Management Company is currently the company's largest shareholder with 13% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.4% by the third-largest shareholder.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 13 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% 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. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.