XJ International Holdings Co., Ltd.'s (HKG:1765) market cap surged HK$148m last week, individual investors who have a lot riding on the company were rewarded

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in XJ International Holdings indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 3 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Past performance of a company along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

If you want to know who really controls XJ International Holdings Co., Ltd. (HKG:1765), 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 47% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, individual investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit HK$1.4b market cap following a 12% gain in the stock.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of XJ International Holdings.

Check out our latest analysis for XJ International Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About XJ International Holdings?

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.

XJ International Holdings 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. 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 XJ International Holdings, (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 XJ International Holdings. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Hope Education Investment Limited with 45% of shares outstanding. With 3.4% and 1.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, China Merchants Fund Management Company Ltd. and UBS Asset Management AG are the second and third largest shareholders. In addition, we found that Huiwu Wang, the CEO has 1.0% of the shares allocated to their name.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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. We're not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held.

Insider Ownership Of XJ International Holdings

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in XJ International Holdings Co., Ltd.. As individuals, the insiders collectively own HK$15m worth of the HK$1.4b company. This shows at least some alignment, but we usually like to see larger insider holdings. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 47% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 46%, 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with XJ International Holdings (including 1 which can't be ignored) .

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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.