To get a sense of who is truly in control of Byrna Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:BYRN), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 56% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.
Since institutional have access to huge amounts of capital, their market moves tend to receive a lot of scrutiny by retail or individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.
In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Byrna Technologies.
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Byrna Technologies?
Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.
We can see that Byrna Technologies does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Byrna Technologies' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.
NasdaqCM:BYRN Earnings and Revenue Growth May 13th 2025
Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Byrna Technologies is not owned by hedge funds. Pierre Lapeyre is currently the largest shareholder, with 13% of shares outstanding. FMR LLC is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and Capital Research and Management Company holds about 7.2% of the company stock. Furthermore, CEO Bryan Ganz is the owner of 4.2% of the company's shares.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 9 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 Byrna Technologies
The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.
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 information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Byrna Technologies Inc.. Insiders have a US$96m stake in this US$487m business. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.
General Public Ownership
The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 25% stake in Byrna Technologies. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.
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.