What Kind Of Shareholders Hold The Majority In Dong-Ah Geological Engineering Company Ltd.'s (KRX:028100) Shares?

A look at the shareholders of Dong-Ah Geological Engineering Company Ltd. (KRX:028100) can tell us which group is most powerful. Institutions often own shares in more established companies, while it's not unusual to see insiders own a fair bit of smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Dong-Ah Geological Engineering is a smaller company with a market capitalization of ₩190b, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions are not really that prevalent on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Dong-Ah Geological Engineering.

See our latest analysis for Dong-Ah Geological Engineering

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Dong-Ah Geological Engineering?

Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.

Since institutions own only a small portion of Dong-Ah Geological Engineering, many may not have spent much time considering the stock. But it's clear that some have; and they liked it enough to buy in. If the business gets stronger from here, we could see a situation where more institutions are keen to buy. When multiple institutional investors want to buy shares, we often see a rising share price. The past revenue trajectory (shown below) can be an indication of future growth, but there are no guarantees.

Dong-Ah Geological Engineering is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Dover Holdings Limited, with ownership of 19%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 18% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.9% by the third-largest shareholder. Jung-Woo Lee, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Top Key Executive.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 19 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

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. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Dong-Ah Geological Engineering

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.

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 most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Dong-Ah Geological Engineering Company Ltd.. Insiders own ₩43b worth of shares in the ₩190b company. 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

The general public -- mostly retail investors -- own 52% of Dong-Ah Geological Engineering. This size of ownership gives retail investors collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 22%, 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:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Dong-Ah Geological Engineering that you should be aware of before investing here.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies.

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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