Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Co., Ltd.'s (SZSE:000998) largest shareholders are individual investors who were rewarded as market cap surged CN¥803m last week

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 25 shareholders own 44% of the company
• Institutional ownership in Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture is 14%

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Co., Ltd. (SZSE:000998), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 55% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, individual investors were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 5.7% gain.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture.

See our latest analysis for Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture. 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 Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is CITIC Group Corporation with 17% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.0% by the third-largest shareholder.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Co., Ltd.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth CN¥326m. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 55% stake in Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This level of ownership gives investors from the wider public some power to sway key policy decisions such as board composition, executive compensation, and the dividend payout ratio.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 22%, of the company's shares. 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those makes us a bit uncomfortable...

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.