Waja Company's (TADAWUL:9560) most bullish insider is Top Key Executive Ibrahim bin Abdullah Bin Abdul Salam, and their holdings value went up by 11% last week

Key Insights

• Significant insider control over Waja implies vested interests in company growth
• The largest shareholder of the company is Ibrahim bin Abdullah Bin Abdul Salam with a 51% stake
• Past performance of a company along with ownership data serve to give a strong idea about prospects for a business

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Waja Company (TADAWUL:9560), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. With 51% stake, individual insiders possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Clearly, insiders benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by ر.س55m last week.

Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Waja.

See our latest analysis for Waja

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Waja?

We don't tend to see institutional investors holding stock of companies that are very risky, thinly traded, or very small. Though we do sometimes see large companies without institutions on the register, it's not particularly common.

There are many reasons why a company might not have any institutions on the share registry. It may be hard for institutions to buy large amounts of shares, if liquidity (the amount of shares traded each day) is low. If the company has not needed to raise capital, institutions might lack the opportunity to build a position. Alternatively, there might be something about the company that has kept institutional investors away. Institutional investors may not find the historic growth of the business impressive, or there might be other factors at play. You can see the past revenue performance of Waja, for yourself, below.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Waja. From our data, we infer that the largest shareholder is Ibrahim bin Abdullah Bin Abdul Salam (who also holds the title of Top Key Executive) with 51% of shares outstanding. Its usually considered a good sign when insiders own a significant number of shares in the company, and in this case, we're glad to see a company insider play the role of a key stakeholder. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 7.1% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 0.04% by the third-largest shareholder. Interestingly, the third-largest shareholder, Mohammad bin bin Muhammad Al-Sharif is also a Vice Chairman, again, indicating strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.

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

Insider Ownership Of Waja

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

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.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Waja Company stock. This gives them a lot of power. That means they own ر.س290m worth of shares in the ر.س568m company. That's quite meaningful. It is good to see this level of investment. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 42% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 7.1%, of the company's shares. 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:

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. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Waja that you should be aware of.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials.

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.