JGC Holdings Corporation's (TSE:1963) market cap touched JP¥341b last week, benefiting both retail investors who own 49% as well as institutions

Key Insights

• Significant control over JGC Holdings by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 48% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders
• Institutions own 46% of JGC Holdings

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If you want to know who really controls JGC Holdings Corporation (TSE:1963), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are retail investors with 49% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While retail investors were the group that benefitted the most from last week’s JP¥10b market cap gain, institutions too had a 46% share in those profits.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of JGC Holdings.

View our latest analysis for JGC Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About JGC Holdings?

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.

We can see that JGC Holdings 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. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of JGC Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in JGC Holdings. Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd. is currently the largest shareholder, with 7.1% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 5.7% and 5.0% of the stock.

Our studies suggest that the top 25 shareholders collectively control less than half of the company's shares, meaning that the company's shares are widely disseminated and there is no dominant shareholder.

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 JGC Holdings

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 information suggests that JGC Holdings Corporation insiders own under 1% of the company. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. It's a big company, so even a small proportional interest can create alignment between the board and shareholders. In this case insiders own JP¥244m worth of shares. It is always good to see at least some insider ownership, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 49% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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

It seems that Private Companies own 5.0%, of the JGC Holdings 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:

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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for JGC Holdings 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.