The big shareholder groups in Hemisphere Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HMTV) have power over the company. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

With a market capitalization of US$441m, Hemisphere Media Group is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutional investors have bought into the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Hemisphere Media Group.

See our latest analysis for Hemisphere Media Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hemisphere Media Group?

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.

Hemisphere Media Group 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Hemisphere Media Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Hemisphere Media Group. Peter Kern is currently the largest shareholder, with 42% of shares outstanding. With 6.8% and 4.2% of the shares outstanding respectively, Grupo MVS S.A. de C.V. and Fine Capital Partners, L.P. are the second and third largest shareholders. Additionally, the company's CEO Alan Sokol directly holds 1.7% of the total shares outstanding.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 3 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

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. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.