PICC Property and Casualty Company Limited's (HKG:2328) biggest owners are public companies who got richer after stock soared 3.9% last week

Key Insights

• PICC Property and Casualty's significant public companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The largest shareholder of the company is The People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited with a 69% stake
• Institutions own 12% of PICC Property and Casualty

If you want to know who really controls PICC Property and Casualty Company Limited (HKG:2328), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are public companies with 69% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As a result, public companies collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit HK$226b market cap following a 3.9% gain in the stock.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of PICC Property and Casualty, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for PICC Property and Casualty

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About PICC Property and Casualty?

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.

We can see that PICC Property and Casualty does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see PICC Property and Casualty's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

PICC Property and Casualty is not owned by hedge funds. The People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 69% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 1.9% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 1.6% by the third-largest shareholder.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of PICC Property and Casualty

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 19% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over PICC Property and Casualty. 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 69% of the PICC Property and Casualty shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

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. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for PICC Property and Casualty that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.