Retail investors in Hunan Silver Co.,Ltd. (SZSE:002716) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 7.8% last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Hunan SilverLtd by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 10 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Institutions own 16% of Hunan SilverLtd

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Hunan Silver Co.,Ltd. (SZSE:002716), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 49% stake, retail investors possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, retail investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit CN¥11b market cap following a 7.8% gain in the stock.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Hunan SilverLtd

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hunan SilverLtd?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Hunan SilverLtd. 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. 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 Hunan SilverLtd's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hunan SilverLtd is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Hunan Nonferrous Industrial Investment Group Co., Ltd., with ownership of 22%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 7.4% and 5.6% of the stock.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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

Insider Ownership Of Hunan SilverLtd

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. Not all jurisdictions have the same rules around disclosing insider ownership, and it is possible we have missed something, here. So you can click here learn more about the CEO.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 49% 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 Hunan SilverLtd better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Hunan SilverLtd that you should be aware of before investing here.

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.