Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd.'s (TSE:5423) 5.8% loss last week hit both individual investors who own 33% as well as institutions

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Tokyo Steel Manufacturing indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 7 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Institutions own 31% of Tokyo Steel Manufacturing

A look at the shareholders of Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSE:5423) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 33% to be precise, is individual investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

While institutions, who own 31% shares weren’t spared from last week’s JP¥11b market cap drop, individual investors as a group suffered the maximum losses

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

View our latest analysis for Tokyo Steel Manufacturing

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Tokyo Steel Manufacturing?

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.

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing 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 Tokyo Steel Manufacturing's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Tokyo Steel Manufacturing. Our data shows that TOS LLC is the largest shareholder with 17% of shares outstanding. With 12% and 6.7% of the shares outstanding respectively, Iketani Science & Technology Foundation, Endowment Arm and Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd. are the second and third largest shareholders.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 7 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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

Insider Ownership Of Tokyo Steel Manufacturing

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. 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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd.. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around JP¥15b worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 33% 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

We can see that Private Companies own 27%, of the shares on issue. 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 Tokyo Steel Manufacturing better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Tokyo Steel Manufacturing (of which 1 is a bit concerning!) 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.