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With 61% ownership, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) boasts of strong institutional backing

Simply Wall St · 01/05 10:15

Key Insights

  • Significantly high institutional ownership implies Cleveland-Cliffs' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
  • The top 25 shareholders own 43% of the company
  • Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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If you want to know who really controls Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 61% to be precise, is institutions. 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. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Cleveland-Cliffs.

View our latest analysis for Cleveland-Cliffs

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NYSE:CLF Ownership Breakdown January 5th 2026

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Cleveland-Cliffs?

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.

We can see that Cleveland-Cliffs 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. 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 Cleveland-Cliffs' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

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NYSE:CLF Earnings and Revenue Growth January 5th 2026

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Cleveland-Cliffs is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the largest shareholder with 7.4% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 7.4% of common stock, and State Street Global Advisors, Inc. holds about 4.0% of the company stock. Additionally, the company's CEO C. Goncalves directly holds 0.8% of the total shares outstanding.

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.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Cleveland-Cliffs

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

We can see that insiders own shares in Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.. It is a very large company, and board members collectively own US$117m worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows a good alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 38% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Cleveland-Cliffs. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Cleveland-Cliffs (2 are significant) that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.