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Facebook Inc. (FB) is the largest social networking site in the world with 2.8 billion monthly active users (MAUs) as of year-end 2020. Its namesake website and app enable people to connect with family and friends, and to share their opinions, ideas, images, and videos. Facebook also owns and operates the popular photo-sharing app Instagram as well as messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp. Additionally, the company provides virtual-reality hardware, software, and a developer ecosystem through its Facebook Reality Labs’ business.
Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and three classmates at Harvard University at the time. Facebook went public in 2012 and has become one of the world’s largest companies with a market capitalization of $964.6 billion as of Oct. 1, 2021. For the trailing 12 month (TTM) period ended Oct. 1, 2021, Facebook earned $39.0 billion in net inCome and $104.8 billion in revenue.
The top individual insider shareholders of Facebook are Michael Schroepfer, David Fischer, and David Wehner, and the top institutional shareholders are Mark Zuckerberg, Vanguard Group Inc., and BlackRock Inc.
“Insider” refers to people in senior management positions and members of the board of directors, as well as people or entities that own more than 10% of the company’s stock. In this context, it has nothing to do with insider trading.
Top 3 Individual Insider Shareholders
The shares owned by individual insider shareholders are those that are held through direct ownership. Shares mentioned in this section do not include shares held indirectly nor shares accessible through stock options. Company insiders must file an SEC Form 4 every time they buy or sell an amount of the company’s stock that is deemed to be material.
Michael Schroepfer
Michael Schroepfer owns a total of 600,873 Facebook shares, representing 0.02% of the company’s total shares outstanding. Schroepfer is Facebook’s chief technology officer, leading Facebook’s technological development teams across areas including artificial intelligence and virtual reality. He joined Facebook in 2008. Prior to Facebook, Schroepfer held an executive position in engineering with Mozilla Corp. as well as positions at Sun Microsystems and CenterRun Inc. In September 2021, Schroepfer announced he would step down from the CTO position in 2022 to become a senior fellow at the company.
David Fischer
David Fischer owns a total of 37,089 Facebook shares, representing less than 0.1% of the company’s total shares outstanding. Fischer is chief revenue officer of Facebook, overseeing the company’s advertising business and managing the Sales and Marketing teams worldwide. He joined Facebook in 2010, having previously been vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google (GOOG). He is known for having built and directed Google’s online sales channel. Fischer was also deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Treasury Department. He is a board member of Alterra Mountain Co. and chair of the Ad Council.
David Wehner
David Wehner owns a total of 22,521 shares of Facebook, representing less than 0.1% of the company’s total shares outstanding. Since 2014, Wehner has been chief financial officer of Facebook, responsible for leading the finance, facilities and information technology teams. Wehner previously was Facebook’s vice president of Corporate Finance and Business Planning as well as chief financial officer at Zynga Inc. (ZNGA).
Top 3 Institutional Shareholders
Institutional investors hold about 65.7% of Facebook’s total shares outstanding. Institutional investors — institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets under management (AUM) — must file an SEC Form 13F every quarter to disclose their equity holdings. Individual investors may be considered institutional investors if they acquire 5% or more of a company’s shares, thus requiring them to file either a Schedule 13D or Schedule 13G form. According to Whale Wisdom, more than 3100 13F filers held Facebook stock as of the end of Q2 2021. About 750 of them included Facebook in their top 10 holdings.
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg is Facebook’s largest shareholder by far. As mentioned, he co-founded Facebook and has been the company’s longtime chair and chief executive officer (CEO). At the age of 36, Zuckerberg is also ranked fifth on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List with a net worth of $97 billion. He currently holds more than 398 million shares of Facebook, which constitutes 16.7% of all outstanding shares, according to a 13G filing for the period ending Dec. 31, 2020.
Vanguard Group Inc.
Vanguard is one of the world’s largest investment management companies with about 440 low-cost traditional funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Vanguard is primarily a mutual fund and ETF management company and has about $7.2 trillion in global assets under management (AUM). The Vanguard Communication Services ETF (VOX), with $ 4.6 billion under management, is one of many Vanguard fund’s holding Facebook shares. Facebook is the largest holding in this fund’s portfolio, at about 17.1% of total invested assets.
BlackRock Inc.
BlackRock is one of the world’s leading asset and investment management firms with approximately $8.7 trillion in AUM as of Dec. 31, 2020. The company offers a wide range of mutual funds, iShares ETFs and closed-end funds. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) is among one of BlackRock’s largest ETFs with approximately $286.7 billion in AUM. Facebook is the fourth-largest holding of this fund, at about 2.2% of invested assets.