Following recent decline, pluszero, Inc.'s (TSE:5132) top shareholder CEO Yoshiyuki Ojiro sees holdings value drop by 14%

Key Insights

• Insiders appear to have a vested interest in pluszero's growth, as seen by their sizeable ownership
• 61% of the business is held by the top 3 shareholders
• Ownership research, combined with past performance data can help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls pluszero, Inc. (TSE:5132), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 65% stake, individual insiders possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And following last week's 14% decline in share price, insiders suffered the most losses.

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

View our latest analysis for pluszero

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About pluszero?

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.

pluszero already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. 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 pluszero's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in pluszero. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Yoshiyuki Ojiro with 33% of shares outstanding. Motoki Nagata is the second largest shareholder owning 15% of common stock, and Ryota Mori holds about 14% of the company stock. Note that two of the top three shareholders are also Senior Key Executive and Member of the Board of Directors, respectively, once again pointing to significant ownership by company insiders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 3 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company.

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 is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of pluszero

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. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our information suggests that insiders own more than half of pluszero, Inc.. This gives them effective control of the company. Given it has a market cap of JP¥19b, that means they have JP¥12b worth of shares. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish todiscover (for free) if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 25% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over pluszero. 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.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 4.1% of pluszero stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

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 pluszero .

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.