Retail investors are HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Ltd.'s (KRX:009540) biggest owners and were rewarded after market cap rose by ₩2.2t last week

Key Insights

• HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• A total of 7 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Institutions own 22% of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering

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A look at the shareholders of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Ltd. (KRX:009540) can tell us which group is most powerful. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 43% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, retail investors collectively scored the highest last week as the company hit ₩31t market cap following a 7.5% gain in the stock.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering?

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 HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering 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 HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is HD Hyundai Co., Ltd. with 35% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.2% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 2.6% by the third-largest shareholder.

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.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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 information suggests that HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., Ltd. insiders own under 1% of the company. Being so large, we would not expect insiders to own a large proportion of the stock. Collectively, they own ₩1.4b of stock. It is good to see board members owning shares, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 43% 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 35% of the HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering shares on issue. We can't be certain but it is quite possible this is a strategic stake. The businesses may be similar, or work together.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering better, we need to consider many other factors.

I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow, for free.

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.