Is Neusoft Education Technology Co. Limited (HKG:9616) Popular Amongst Insiders?

A look at the shareholders of Neusoft Education Technology Co. Limited (HKG:9616) can tell us which group is most powerful. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Neusoft Education Technology is a smaller company with a market capitalization of HK$3.3b, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are not really that prevalent on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Neusoft Education Technology.

View our latest analysis for Neusoft Education Technology

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Neusoft Education Technology?

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.

Since institutions own only a small portion of Neusoft Education Technology, many may not have spent much time considering the stock. But it's clear that some have; and they liked it enough to buy in. If the business gets stronger from here, we could see a situation where more institutions are keen to buy. We sometimes see a rising share price when a few big institutions want to buy a certain stock at the same time. The history of earnings and revenue, which you can see below, could be helpful in considering if more institutional investors will want the stock. Of course, there are plenty of other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Neusoft Education Technology. Dalian Neusoft Holding Co., Ltd. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 37% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 24% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 9.8% by the third-largest shareholder. In addition, we found that Tao Wen, the CEO has 1.4% of the shares allocated to their name.

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.

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 Neusoft Education 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.

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Neusoft Education Technology Co. Limited. It has a market capitalization of just HK$3.3b, and insiders have HK$874m worth of shares in their own names. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 18% stake in the company, will not 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 47%, of the shares on issue. 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 4.2% of Neusoft Education Technology 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Neusoft Education Technology that you should be aware of before investing here.

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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