Individual investors among Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology Co., Ltd's (SHSE:688022) largest stockholders and were hit after last week's 10% price drop

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 14 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Institutional ownership in Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology is 20%

If you want to know who really controls Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology Co., Ltd (SHSE:688022), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 43% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, individual investors as a group endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by CN¥259m.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology.

View our latest analysis for Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology. Suzhou Harmontronics Investment Management Co., Ltd. is currently the largest shareholder, with 29% of shares outstanding. Suzhou Harmontronics Dehe Investment Management Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership) is the second largest shareholder owning 5.5% of common stock, and Taiping Asset Management Company Limited holds about 2.9% of the company stock.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 14 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

We can report that insiders do own shares in Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology Co., Ltd. As individuals, the insiders collectively own CN¥36m worth of the CN¥2.3b company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 43% stake in the company, and hence can't 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 34%, of the company's shares. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Suzhou Harmontronics Automation Technology is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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