Sichuan Etrol Technologies Co., Ltd.'s (SZSE:300370) 9.4% loss last week hit both individual investors who own 56% as well as institutions

Key Insights

• Significant control over Sichuan Etrol Technologies by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 21 shareholders own 44% of the company
• Institutions own 20% of Sichuan Etrol Technologies

If you want to know who really controls Sichuan Etrol Technologies Co., Ltd. (SZSE:300370), 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 retail investors with 56% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

While the holdings of retail investors took a hit after last week’s 9.4% price drop, institutions with their 20% holdings also suffered.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Sichuan Etrol Technologies.

View our latest analysis for Sichuan Etrol Technologies

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Sichuan Etrol Technologies?

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 Sichuan Etrol Technologies. 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 Sichuan Etrol Technologies' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Sichuan Etrol Technologies. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Yibin Xuzhou District Chuangyi Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. with 15% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 14% and 6.6% of the stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 21 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. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.

Insider Ownership Of Sichuan Etrol Technologies

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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 can see that insiders own shares in Sichuan Etrol Technologies Co., Ltd.. In their own names, insiders own CN¥388m worth of stock in the CN¥4.8b company. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 56% stake in Sichuan Etrol Technologies, 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

We can see that Private Companies own 15%, of the shares on issue. 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 Sichuan Etrol Technologies is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

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.

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

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.