Key Insights

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

• A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 41% ownership

• Analyst forecasts along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 60% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 3.5% last week. The one-year return on investment is currently 49% and last week's gain would have been more than welcomed.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Altria Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Altria Group?

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.

Altria Group 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. 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 Altria Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

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 Altria Group. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently the largest shareholder, with 9.2% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.4% and 4.5% of the stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.