Institutional investors own a significant stake of 30% in Tongcheng Travel Holdings Limited (HKG:780)

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Tongcheng Travel Holdings implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 5 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Insiders have sold recently

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Tongcheng Travel Holdings Limited (HKG:780), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 30% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Given the vast amount of money and research capacities at their disposal, institutional ownership tends to carry a lot of weight, especially with individual investors. Hence, having a considerable amount of institutional money invested in a company is often regarded as a desirable trait.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Tongcheng Travel Holdings, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Tongcheng Travel Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Tongcheng Travel Holdings?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

Tongcheng Travel Holdings already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Tongcheng Travel Holdings' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Tongcheng Travel Holdings. The company's largest shareholder is Trip.com Group Limited, with ownership of 20%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 14% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 7.3% by the third-largest shareholder.

Our research also brought to light the fact that roughly 51% of the company is controlled by the top 5 shareholders suggesting that these owners wield significant influence on the business.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Tongcheng Travel Holdings

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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Tongcheng Travel Holdings Limited. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around HK$983m worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 23% stake in Tongcheng Travel Holdings. 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 Equity Ownership

With a stake of 14%, private equity firms could influence the Tongcheng Travel Holdings board. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 4.2%, of the Tongcheng Travel Holdings stock. 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.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 28% of Tongcheng Travel Holdings stock. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.

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 1 warning sign for Tongcheng Travel Holdings you should know about.

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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.