NVIDIA’s Ownership Structure
In 1993, Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded NVIDIA as a fabless manufacturer of graphics accelerator chips for desktop computers. At the time, NVIDIA had secured funding of $20 million from investors like Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures. Six years later, in 1999, the company went on to invent graphic processing units (GPUs) which revolutionized computing.
However, before tasting success, the now trillion-dollar corporation almost went out of business. Late realizations of strategic missteps in designing a graphics chip for Sega’s Dreamcast forced Sega to look elsewhere for its graphics chip. However, Shoichiro Irimajiri, Sega president, secured a $5 million investment from Sega’s board for NVIDIA. This funding proved vital for the company’s survival and supported the development of RIVA 128, the company’s first major success.
In this article about NVIDIA’s ownership structure, we will note how various investors and stakeholders played a role in NVIDIA’s journey. Read on to know more!
Top individual shareholders
The top individual shareholders at NVIDIA are as follows:
Jensen Huang | 3.5%
Jensen Huang is NVIDIA’s largest individual shareholder and has served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President ever since he founded it along with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem in 1993. According to Forbes, Jensen Huang is the 20th richest man in the world with a net worth of $77 billion, a fortune that can largely be traced to his 3.5% ownership of NVIDIA.
While his LinkedIn page lists being a dishwasher, busboy, and waiter at Denny’s as his experience prior to NVIDIA, he started his journey in the chipmaking industry at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and later moved to LSI Logic where he rose through the ranks to the position of Director of CoreWeave.
Mark A. Stevens | 0.01%
In 1989, Mark A. Stevens joined Sequoia Capital, one of the early investors of NVIDIA, as an associate and rose to the rank of managing general partner by the time he exited the venture capital firm in 2012. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital, Stevens also worked at Intel and completed his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989. Like Huang, Stevens also had his first job in the service industry when he served as a cook at Jack in the Box in California as a 16-year-old.
Since 2008, he has served as a board member of NVIDIA. Previously, he was the chair of the Compensation Committee and a member of the NCG Committee at NVIDIA.
Currently, he also serves as a Managing Partner at S-Cubed Capital and as a Board Member of Innovium and Second Spectrum.
Tench Coxe | 0.01%
Like Stevens, Tench Coxe, too, joined one of NVIDIA’s early investors in 1989. Coxe joined Sutter Hill Ventures as a managing director in 1989 and when Sutter Hill Ventures invested in NVIDIA in 1993, Coxe joined the NVIDIA board and currently serves as a member of the Compensation Committee.
Currently, Coxe also serves on the boards of Tower Cloud, Artisan Partners, PINC, Actiance, Swift Financial, and RedSeal. In the past, Coxe worked as a corporate financial analyst at Lehman Brothers and served as the director for internal MIS and marketing at Digital Communications Associates.
Top institutional shareholders
Currently, NVIDIA’s institutional ownership stands at 64.39%. Five institutional investors have recently made significant new investments in NVIDIA, each exceeding $250 million. These include HRT Financial LP, Tairen Capital, Aspex Management (HK), IMC-Chicago, and Oriental Harbor Investment Fund.
The following table lists the top 10 institutional investors of NVIDIA. Together, these investors represent more than half of the institutional ownership in NVIDIA.
| Institution | Shares | Date Reported | Ownership percentage | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Group Inc | 2.14 billion | Sep 30, 2024 | 8.75% | $292,841,298,160 |
| Blackrock Inc. | 1.85 billion | Sep 30, 2024 | 7.56% | $252,932,224,668 |
| FMR, LLC | 997.71 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 4.07% | $136,287,377,319 |
| State Street Corporation | 945.74 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 3.86% | $129,187,819,987 |
| Geode Capital Management, LLC | 546.08 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 2.23% | $74,594,461,940 |
| JP Morgan Chase & Company | 406.71 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 1.66% | $55,556,409,946 |
| Price (T.Rowe) Associates Inc | 407.61 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 1.66% | $55,679,203,379 |
| Morgan Stanley | 329.72 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 1.35% | $45,039,790,621 |
| Norges Bank Investment Management | 291.73 million | Jun 30, 2024 | 1.19% | $39,849,959,156 |
| Bank of America Corporation | 245.1 million | Sep 30, 2024 | 1.00% | $33,480,603,987 |
NVIDIA’s Stock performance
At the time of writing, NVIDIA’s stock price stood at $128.91. This would put its 1-year return at 163.67% and 5-year return at 2,158.71%. This remarkable growth in stock price led to NVIDIA having a high 5-year monthly beta of 1.66 and a 52-week range of 166.16%. In contrast, the S&P 500 had a 52-week range of 47.32 – 152.89.
Share price statistics
| Financial metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Beta (5Y Monthly) | 1.66 |
| 52 Week Range | 166.16% |
| S&P 500 52-Week Change | 27.47% |
| 52 Week High | 152.89 |
| 52 Week Low | 47.32 |
| 50-Day Moving Average | 139.74 |
| 200-Day Moving Average | 115.75 |
NVIDIA has been acting as a catalyst to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution being pioneered by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral AI, and Cohere. As of Q3 2024, NVIDIA had captured 90% of the global market for GPUs whose processing power is essential for training AI models and generating responses. As a result, NVIDIA’s stock has garnered a lot of interest from investors, leading to an average 3-month volume of 234.76 million.
The popularity of the tech giant is also reflected in how few traders are interested in shorting its stock. While a good short percentage of float is below 10%, the figure for NVIDIA stands at 1.05%.
Volume and shareholding statistics
| Financial metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Average volume (3 months) | 234.76 Million |
| Average volume (10 days) | 206.47 Million |
| Outstanding shares | 24.49 Billion |
| Implied outstanding shares | 25.41 Billion |
| Float | 23.54 Billion |
| Percentage held by insiders | 4.29% |
| Percentage held by institutions | 66.17% |
| Shares short (10/31/2024) | 246.4 million |
| Short ratio (10/31/2024) | 1.01 |
| Short percentage of float (10/31/2024) | 1.05% |
| Short percentage of shares outstanding (10/31/2024) | 1.00% |
| Shares short (prior month 9/30/2024) | 251.09 million |
Being a growth pick, currently, NVIDIA offers low dividends with its 5-year average dividend yield standing at 0.09.
Dividend information
| Particulars | Value |
|---|---|
| Forward annual dividend rate | 0.04 |
| Forward annual dividend yield | 0.03% |
| Trailing annual dividend rate | 0 |
| Trailing annual dividend yield | 0.00% |
| 5-year average dividend yield | 0.09 |
| Payout ratio | 1.11% |
| Dividend date | 12/27/2024 |
| Ex-dividend date | 9/12/2024 |
| Last split factor | 10:1 |
| Last split date | 6/10/2024 |
Factors driving shifts in NVIDIA’s ownership structure
Among the Wall Street analysts that have rated NVIDIA in the last 12 months, there is a strong consensus rating of ‘Moderate Buy.’ The following table summarizes the current ratings issued by the 66 Wall Street analysts for NVIDIA.
| Rating | Number of analysts |
|---|---|
| Hold | 5 |
| Buy | 50 |
| Overweight | 11 |
At NVIDIA, individual shareholders have a very limited influence on policy decisions. The retail investors collectively own 28% of the company. This amount of voting power is not enough to turn around a policy decision. However, in impasses between institutional investors, their votes can be decisive.
The top 25 shareholders collectively hold a little less than 50% of the share register, so no individual can own a majority interest. Since institutional investors own 68% of the company, the company’s policies and strategies are heavily influenced by the preferences of institutions.
Seeing how institutional investors made a net purchase of 3,537,970,136 shares worth $318.78 billion, it would be reasonable to expect a continuance of the institutional investor stronghold on NVIDIA’s ownership and governance.
This ownership structure reflects a blend of institutional confidence in NVIDIA’s growth potential alongside significant insider commitment to the company’s future direction.
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