The Top 4 Yelp Shareholders (YELP)

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Steven Nickolas
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Steven Nickolas is a freelance writer and has 10+ years of experience working as a consultant to retail and institutional investors.
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Updated July 26, 2023
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What Is Yelp?

Yelp Inc. (YELP) was founded in 2004 by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russell Simmons to help San Francisco residents find and review local businesses. From its humble beginning, Yelp has grown its global user base and has 265 million cumulative reviews, 6.3 million active, claimed local business locations, and 554,000 paying advertising locations.

As of March 2023, the top four institutional shareholders of Yelp shares are BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc., State Street Corp., and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP.

Yelp's trailing 12-month (TTM) revenue as of Dec. 31, 2022 was $1.193 billion. Its TTM net income was $36.34 million. The company announced its first quarter 2023 earnings on May 4, 2023. The company reported $312 million in revenue for Q1, a 13% year-over-year increase. It had a net loss of $1 million. Its market cap as of June 2023 was $2.47 billion.

  • Yelp was founded in 2004 by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russell Simmons
  • Revenues for the first quarter of 2023 were $312 million.
  • BlackRock is the top institutional shareholder, with 12,244,610 shares.
  • BlackRock holds 17.79% of Yelp's outstanding shares.
  • Vanguard group is the second biggest institutional shareholder, with 9,542,375 shares.

Top 4 Institutional Shareholders

Shares of Yelp are owned by 348 institutional investors. In fact, 92.93% of all Yelp stock is held by institutions.

The Yelp share figures below are current as of March 30, 2023 and courtesy of Yahoo Finance.

BlackRock Inc

  • Shares owned: 12,244,610
  • Percentage of outstanding shares: 17.79%

Founded in 1981, BlackRock is a publicly traded U.S. investment management company that offers investment, advisory, and risk management services to companies and individuals. Its goal is to make investing more accessible and simpler to improve the financial well-being of more people. BlackRock has assets under management of $9.4 trillion.

Vanguard Group Inc.

  • Shares owned: 9,542,375
  • Percentage of outstanding shares: 13.86%

Vanguard was founded by famed investor John Bogle in 1975. It's a U.S. investment management company that offers retail and institutional investors investment advice and a range of mutual and exchange-traded funds. Vanguard Group isn't a publicly-traded company. Rather, it is owned by the investors in its funds. As of 2022, Vanguard had $8.1 trillion in assets under management.

Yelp's co-founder, Jeremy Stoppelman, originally sought the name Yokel for the business but couldn't obtain the domain name. He and co-founder Russel Simmons instead went with Yelp because it was short, memorable, and sounded similar to "help" and "yellow" pages.

State Street Corp.

  • Shares owned: 2,558,204
  • Percentage of outstanding shares: 3.72%

State Street is an investment manager for over 2,100 institutional clients in 57 countries. Its clients include asset managers, insurance companies, official institutions, and central banks. Its purpose is to provide advice and investment solutions that support the various goals clients have throughout their investment cycles. Its investment management division is State Street Global Advisors, the world’s fourth-largest asset manager. As of the second quarter of 2023, State Street had $3.8 trillion in assets under management.

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP

  • Shares owned: 2,066,180
  • Percentage of outstanding shares: 3.00%

Dimensional is an asset management firm that was founded in 1981. It has locations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Dimensional specializes in a wide choice of equity and fixed income funds and strategies aimed at securing higher returns for investors. And it places great importance on solid academic research to support its efforts. It has $634 billion in assets under management.

Who Uses Yelp?

Yelp research shows that the greatest user of Yelp is 55 or older, college educated, and earns $100,000 or more per year.

Do Mutual Funds Hold Yelp Stock?

Yes, they do. Some mutual fund shareholders include iShares Core S&P Smallcap ETF, iShares Russell 2000 ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, and John Hancock Small Cap Core Fd.

Does Yelp Pay a Dividend?

No, Yelp currently is not paying shareholders a dividend.

The Bottom Line

Yelp's top institutional shareholders as of March 2023 were BlackRock, Vanguard Group, State Street Corp., and Dimensional Fund Advisors. Together they own about 38.3% of all shares outstanding.

In May 2023, a new top institutional shareholder, TCS Capital, made itself known and revealed that it owned more than 4% of Yelp shares outstanding.

Article Sources
Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.

  1. Yelp. "Fast Facts."

  2. Yelp Investor Relations. "A Trusted Local Platform."

  3. Yahoo Finance. "Yelp Inc."

  4. Yelp Investor Relations. "Demand for Yelp's Advertising Products Drove Strong First Quarter 2023 Results."

  5. companiesmarketcap.com. "Market capitalization of Yelp (YELP).

  6. Yahoo Finance. "Yelp Inc. (YELP): Top Institutional Holders."

  7. BlackRock. "About BlackRock."

  8. BlackRock Investor Relations. "BlackRock Reports Second Quarter 2023 Diluted EPS of $9.06, or $9.28 as adjusted."

  9. Vanguard. "Facts and Figures."

  10. Statista. "Assets under management (AUM) of Vanguard in 1975, 1990, 2005 and 2022."

  11. Yelp. "Inside Yelp: How the Company Got Its Name."

  12. State Street. "Our Company."

  13. BlackRock. "State Street 2Q23 Results and Metrics."

  14. Dimensional. "Our Company."

  15. The Wall Street Journal. "Activist Investor Calls on Yelp to Explore Sale."

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