Zhuhai Huafa Properties Co.,Ltd's (SHSE:600325) market cap surged CN¥495m last week, individual investors who have a lot riding on the company were rewarded

Key Insights

• Significant control over Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 50% of the business is held by the top 20 shareholders
• Institutions own 25% of Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd

If you want to know who really controls Zhuhai Huafa Properties Co.,Ltd (SHSE:600325), 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 47% 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 3.4% gain.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd?

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.

Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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 Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd. Our data shows that Zhuhai Huafa Industrial Group Co., Ltd. is the largest shareholder with 26% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 3.1% and 2.4%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 20 shareholders have a combined ownership of 50% implying that no single shareholder has a majority.

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

Insider Ownership Of Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd

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.

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 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 47% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 28%, of the company's shares. 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 Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Zhuhai Huafa PropertiesLtd is showing 4 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 2 of those are potentially serious...

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.