Pacific Basin Shipping Limited (HKG:2343) institutional owners may be pleased with recent gains after 8.9% loss over the past year

Key Insights

• Institutions' substantial holdings in Pacific Basin Shipping implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price
• The top 10 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Insiders have been buying lately

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Pacific Basin Shipping Limited (HKG:2343), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are institutions with 77% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Institutional investors would probably welcome last week's 5.0% increase in share prices after a year of 8.9% losses as a sign that returns are likely to begin trending higher.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Pacific Basin Shipping, beginning with the chart below.

Check out our latest analysis for Pacific Basin Shipping

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Pacific Basin Shipping?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

Pacific Basin Shipping 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Pacific Basin Shipping's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Pacific Basin Shipping. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Pzena Investment Management, Inc. with 9.0% of shares outstanding. M&G Investment Management Limited is the second largest shareholder owning 8.0% of common stock, and Fidelity International Ltd holds about 5.8% of the company stock.

We also observed that the top 10 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.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Pacific Basin Shipping

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.

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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Pacific Basin Shipping Limited in their own names. It is a pretty big company, so it would be possible for board members to own a meaningful interest in the company, without owning much of a proportional interest. In this case, they own around HK$42m worth of shares (at current prices). Arguably, recent buying and selling is just as important to consider. You can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 22% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Pacific Basin Shipping. 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. Take risks for example - Pacific Basin Shipping has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

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.