Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.'s (SZSE:002415) last week's 3.6% decline must have disappointed private companies who have a significant stake

Key Insights

• Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology's significant private companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• 52% of the business is held by the top 2 shareholders
• Insiders own 12% of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology

A look at the shareholders of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (SZSE:002415) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 48% to be precise, is private companies. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, private companies as a group endured the highest losses last week after market cap fell by CN¥9.5b.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology. 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is China Electronics Technology Group Corporation with 42% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 10% and 4.9%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 2 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

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 Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology

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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.. It is very interesting to see that insiders have a meaningful CN¥31b stake in this CN¥257b business. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 48%, 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:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Be aware that Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.