Individual investors in Yunnan Tin Company Limited (SZSE:000960) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 9.2% last week

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Yunnan Tin indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• A total of 11 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Institutional ownership in Yunnan Tin is 12%

If you want to know who really controls Yunnan Tin Company Limited (SZSE:000960), 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 44% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Clearly, individual investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by CN¥2.3b last week.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Yunnan Tin, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Yunnan Tin

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yunnan Tin?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

Yunnan Tin already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Yunnan Tin's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Yunnan Tin. The company's largest shareholder is Yunnan Tin Group Company Limited, with ownership of 33%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 11% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 1.4% by the third-largest shareholder.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 11 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over 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. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Yunnan Tin

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.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 44% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 44%, of the Yunnan Tin stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Yunnan Tin better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Yunnan Tin is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com