Could The Wealthy Way Group Limited (HKG:3848) Ownership Structure Tell Us Something Useful?

The big shareholder groups in Wealthy Way Group Limited (HKG:3848) have power over the company. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, 'Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

With a market capitalization of HK$1.1b, Wealthy Way Group is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutional investors have not yet purchased shares. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Wealthy Way Group.

Check out our latest analysis for Wealthy Way Group

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Wealthy Way Group?

Institutional investors often avoid companies that are too small, too illiquid or too risky for their tastes. But it's unusual to see larger companies without any institutional investors.

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. It is also possible that fund managers don't own the stock because they aren't convinced it will perform well. Wealthy Way Group's earnings and revenue track record (below) may not be compelling to institutional investors -- or they simply might not have looked at the business closely.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Wealthy Way Group. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Wai Ho Lo with 66% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. It's usually considered a good sign when insiders own a significant number of shares in the company, and in this case, we're glad to see a company insider with such skin in the game. With an ownership of 0.2%, the second largest shareholder is Weiquan Xie, who also hold the title of Senior Key Executive.

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 I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Wealthy Way Group

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

It seems that insiders own more than half the Wealthy Way Group Limited stock. This gives them a lot of power. Given it has a market cap of HK$1.1b, that means they have HK$727m worth of shares. Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 34% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Wealthy Way Group. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

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. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Wealthy Way Group you should be aware of, and 2 of them are a bit unpleasant.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free 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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