Enplas Corporation (TSE:6961) institutional owners may be pleased with recent gains after 45% loss over the past year

Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Enplas' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• The top 9 shareholders own 50% of the company
• Insider ownership in Enplas is 24%

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If you want to know who really controls Enplas Corporation (TSE:6961), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 37% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Institutional investors would probably welcome last week's 11% increase in the share price after a year of 45% losses as a sign that returns may to begin trending higher.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Enplas

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Enplas?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Enplas. 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 Enplas' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Enplas. With a 16% stake, CEO Daisuke Yokota is the largest shareholder. With 5.9% and 5.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, Makoto Yokota and Fidelity International 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 9 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. While there is some analyst coverage, the company is probably not widely covered. So it could gain more attention, down the track.

Insider Ownership Of Enplas

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Enplas Corporation. It has a market capitalization of just JP¥38b, and insiders have JP¥9.2b worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

With a 35% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Enplas. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Enplas better, we need to consider many other factors. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Enplas you should be aware of.

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.