Individual investors in China Apex Group Limited (HKG:2011) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 14% last week

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in China Apex Group indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 3 shareholders own 49% of the company
• Recent sales by insiders

If you want to know who really controls China Apex Group Limited (HKG:2011), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 51% 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 collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit HK$1.1b market cap following a 14% gain in the stock.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of China Apex Group, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for China Apex Group

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About China Apex Group?

We don't tend to see institutional investors holding stock of companies that are very risky, thinly traded, or very small. Though we do sometimes see large companies without institutions on the register, it's not particularly common.

There are many reasons why a company might not have any institutions on the share registry. It may be hard for institutions to buy large amounts of shares, if liquidity (the amount of shares traded each day) is low. If the company has not needed to raise capital, institutions might lack the opportunity to build a position. On the other hand, it's always possible that professional investors are avoiding a company because they don't think it's the best place for their money. Institutional investors may not find the historic growth of the business impressive, or there might be other factors at play. You can see the past revenue performance of China Apex Group, for yourself, below.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in China Apex Group. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Central Eagle Limited with 23% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 21% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.6% by the third-largest shareholder.

On studying our ownership data, we found that 3 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of China Apex Group

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.

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 China Apex Group Limited. Insiders own HK$245m worth of shares in the HK$1.1b company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 51% of China Apex Group. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 27%, of the China Apex Group stock. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for China Apex Group you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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.