The recent 4.3% gain must have brightened CEO Shanshan Zhong's week, Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd.'s (HKG:9633) most bullish insider

Key Insights

• Nongfu Spring's significant insider ownership suggests inherent interests in company's expansion
• 84% of the company is held by a single shareholder (Shanshan Zhong)
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

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A look at the shareholders of Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd. (HKG:9633) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 84% to be precise, is individual insiders. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Clearly, insiders benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by HK$24b last week.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Nongfu Spring.

View our latest analysis for Nongfu Spring

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Nongfu Spring?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

Institutions have a very small stake in Nongfu Spring. That indicates that the company is on the radar of some funds, but it isn't particularly popular with professional investors at the moment. If the business gets stronger from here, we could see a situation where more institutions are keen to buy. When multiple institutional investors want to buy shares, we often see a rising share price. The past revenue trajectory (shown below) can be an indication of future growth, but there are no guarantees.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Nongfu Spring. The company's CEO Shanshan Zhong is the largest shareholder with 84% of shares outstanding. This implies that they possess majority interests and have significant control over the company. Investors usually consider it a good sign when the company leadership has such a significant stake, as this is widely perceived to increase the chance that the management will act in the best interests of the company. With 0.7% and 0.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Nongfu Spring

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.

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 information suggests that insiders own more than half of Nongfu Spring Co., Ltd.. This gives them effective control of the company. Insiders own HK$490b worth of shares in the HK$583b company. That's extraordinary! Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if they have been selling down their stake.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 13% stake in Nongfu Spring. 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.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Nongfu Spring better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

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.