One of the major institutional investors, Vanguard is ghost owned insofar as it does not have any owners at all in the traditional sense of the concept.

The company claims that it is owned by the multiple funds that it has itself set up and which it manages.

This is how the company puts it on their home page:

"At Vanguard, there are no outside owners, and therefore, no conflicting loyalties.

The company is owned by its funds, which in turn are owned by their shareholders - including you, if you're a Vanguard fund investor."

At the end of the analysis, it would then seem that Vanguard is owned by Vanguard itself, certainly nobody should swallow the charade that those funds stuffed with passive investor money would exercise any ownership control over the superstructure Vanguard.

We therefore assume that there is some group of people (other than the company directors) that have retained the actual control of Vanguard behind the scenes (perhaps through one or a few of the funds).

In fact, we believe that all three (BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard) are tightly controlled by a group of US oligarchs (or more widely transatlantic oligarchs), who prefer not to brandish their power. It is beyond the scope of this study and our means to investigate this hypothesis, but whatever, it is bad enough that as a proven fact these three investor corporations wield this control over most of the American economy.

We also know that the three act in concert wherever they hold shares. (12)

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