Here's What Ashiana Housing Limited's (NSE:ASHIANA) Shareholder Ownership Structure Looks Like

If you want to know who really controls Ashiana Housing Limited (NSE:ASHIANA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. Warren Buffett said that he likes "a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people." So it's nice to see some insider ownership, because it may suggest that management is owner-oriented.

Ashiana Housing is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of ₹8.7b, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Ashiana Housing.

Check out our latest analysis for Ashiana Housing

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Ashiana Housing?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

We can see that Ashiana Housing does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Ashiana Housing's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Ashiana Housing. From our data, we infer that the largest shareholder is Vishal Gupta (who also holds the title of Co-Chief Executive Officer) with 20% of shares outstanding. Its usually considered a good sign when insiders own a significant number of shares in the company, and in this case, we're glad to see a company insider play the role of a key stakeholder. The second and third largest shareholders are Varun Gupta and Ankur Gupta, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 20%. Note that two of the top three shareholders are also Senior Key Executive and Member of the Board of Directors, respectively, once again pointing to significant ownership by company insiders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.

Insider Ownership Of Ashiana Housing

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

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.

Our information suggests that insiders own more than half of Ashiana Housing Limited. This gives them effective control of the company. Given it has a market cap of ₹8.7b, that means they have ₹5.4b worth of shares. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish todiscover (for free) if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 19% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 4.2%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Be aware that Ashiana Housing is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those is a bit concerning...

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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.

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