Individual investors are Zee Media Corporation Limited's (NSE:ZEEMEDIA) biggest owners and were rewarded after market cap rose by ₹2.2b last week

Key Insights

• Significant control over Zee Media by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 51% of the business is held by the top 12 shareholders
• Institutions own 15% of Zee Media

If you want to know who really controls Zee Media Corporation Limited (NSE:ZEEMEDIA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 46% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Clearly, individual investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by ₹2.2b last week.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Zee Media, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Zee Media

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Zee Media?

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 Zee Media does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Zee Media's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Zee Media. The company's largest shareholder is Miloeux Media & Entertainment Private Limited, with ownership of 25%. With 4.2% and 4.1% of the shares outstanding respectively, STCI Finance Ltd, Asset Management Arm and HSBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited are the second and third largest shareholders.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 12 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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. We're not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held.

Insider Ownership Of Zee Media

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 can report that insiders do own shares in Zee Media Corporation Limited. It has a market capitalization of just ₹14b, and insiders have ₹1.2b worth of shares, in their own names. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but we usually like to see higher insider holdings. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

With a 46% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Zee Media. 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 30%, 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.

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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Zee Media .

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials.

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.