While institutions invested in Toda Corporation (TSE:1860) benefited from last week's 3.7% gain, individual investors stood to gain the most

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Toda indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 18 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Institutions own 30% of Toda

If you want to know who really controls Toda Corporation (TSE:1860), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 46% to be precise, is individual investors. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

While individual investors were the group that reaped the most benefits after last week’s 3.7% price gain, institutions also received a 30% cut.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Toda

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Toda?

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.

Toda already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. 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 Toda's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Toda. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Daiichi Shokusan Kk with 14% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 5.3% and 3.9% of the stock.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 50% of the ownership is controlled by the top 18 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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

Insider Ownership Of Toda

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.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Toda Corporation. This is a big company, so it is good to see this level of alignment. Insiders own JP¥6.4b worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 46% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 17%, of the Toda stock. 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Toda better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Toda is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about...

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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.