ORION Corp.'s (KRX:271560) market cap surged ₩186b last week, public companies who have a lot riding on the company were rewarded

Key Insights

• ORION's significant public companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• 52% of the business is held by the top 3 shareholders
• Institutions own 27% of ORION

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If you want to know who really controls ORION Corp. (KRX:271560), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are public companies with 37% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, public companies were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 4.1% gain.

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

View our latest analysis for ORION

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ORION?

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.

ORION 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. 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 ORION's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in ORION. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is ORION Holdings Corp. with 37% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 10.0% and 4.7% of the stock.

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

Insider Ownership Of ORION

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in ORION Corp.. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around ₩248b worth of shares (at current prices). If you would like to explore the question of insider alignment, you can click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 31% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over ORION. 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.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 37% of the ORION 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:

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. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 1 warning sign with ORION , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

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.

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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.