What Type Of Shareholders Own The Most Number of Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited (HKG:371) Shares?

A look at the shareholders of Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited (HKG:371) can tell us which group is most powerful. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of HK$31b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Beijing Enterprises Water Group.

View our latest analysis for Beijing Enterprises Water Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Beijing Enterprises Water Group?

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.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group 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 Beijing Enterprises Water Group's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Beijing Enterprises Water Group. Our data shows that Beijing Enterprises Holdings Limited is the largest shareholder with 41% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 15% and 3.1% of the stock. Min Zhou, who is the third-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Member of the Board of Directors.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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. 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 Beijing Enterprises Water Group

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

I can report that insiders do own shares in Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth HK$964m. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 27% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Beijing Enterprises Water Group. 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 15%, of the company's shares. 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

Public companies currently own 41% of Beijing Enterprises Water Group stock. It's hard to say for sure but this suggests they have entwined business interests. This might be a strategic stake, so it's worth watching this space for changes in ownership.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Beijing Enterprises Water Group (of which 1 doesn't sit too well with us!) you should know about.

Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

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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