Individual investors are ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd.'s (HKG:6060) biggest owners and were hit after market cap dropped HK$617m

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 7 shareholders own 53% of the company
• Institutions own 12% of ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance

Every investor in ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd. (HKG:6060) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 36% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

As market cap fell to HK$19b last week, individual investors would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance?

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.

ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. 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 ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance is not owned by hedge funds. Ant Group Co., Ltd. is currently the largest shareholder, with 10% of shares outstanding. Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and Shenzhen Jiadexin Investment Consulting Co., Ltd. holds about 9.1% of the company stock.

We also observed that the top 7 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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

Insider Ownership Of ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. We do not see this low level of ownership often, and it is possible our data is imperfect. But shareholders can click here to check if insiders have been selling stock.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 36% stake in ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance. 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 Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 29%, of the shares on issue. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 24% of ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance. 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance that you should be aware of.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.