The recent CN¥456m market cap decrease is likely to have disappointed insiders invested in Shanghai Urban Architecture Design Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300983)

Key Insights

• Significant insider control over Shanghai Urban Architecture Design implies vested interests in company growth
• 55% of the business is held by the top 3 shareholders
• Using data from company's past performance alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company

If you want to know who really controls Shanghai Urban Architecture Design Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300983), 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 insiders with 42% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And following last week's 13% decline in share price, insiders suffered the most losses.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Shanghai Urban Architecture Design.

View our latest analysis for Shanghai Urban Architecture Design

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Shanghai Urban Architecture Design?

We don't tend to see institutional investors holding stock of companies that are very risky, thinly traded, or very small. Though we do sometimes see large companies without institutions on the register, it's not particularly common.

There are multiple explanations for why institutions don't own a stock. The most common is that the company is too small relative to funds under management, so the institution does not bother to look closely at the company. Alternatively, there might be something about the company that has kept institutional investors away. Institutional investors may not find the historic growth of the business impressive, or there might be other factors at play. You can see the past revenue performance of Shanghai Urban Architecture Design, for yourself, below.

Shanghai Urban Architecture Design is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Ningbo Youai Investment Center (Limited Partnership) with 33% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Zhifeng Yu and Yang Ye, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 11%. Yang Ye, who is the third-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Member of the Board of Directors. In addition, we found that Lei Chen, the CEO has 2.1% of the shares allocated to their name.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 3 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

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. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Shanghai Urban Architecture Design

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Shanghai Urban Architecture Design Co., Ltd.. It has a market capitalization of just CN¥3.1b, and insiders have CN¥1.3b worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 25% 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

We can see that Private Companies own 33%, of the shares on issue. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Take risks for example - Shanghai Urban Architecture Design has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials.

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.