Individual investors in Yangzijiang Financial Holding Ltd. (SGX:YF8) are its biggest bettors, and their bets paid off as stock gained 6.5% last week

Key Insights

• Yangzijiang Financial Holding's significant individual investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• The top 6 shareholders own 52% of the company
• Institutions own 13% of Yangzijiang Financial Holding

A look at the shareholders of Yangzijiang Financial Holding Ltd. (SGX:YF8) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 42% to be precise, is individual investors. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Clearly, individual investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by S$71m last week.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Yangzijiang Financial Holding.

Check out our latest analysis for Yangzijiang Financial Holding

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yangzijiang Financial Holding?

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.

We can see that Yangzijiang Financial Holding 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. 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 Yangzijiang Financial Holding'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 Yangzijiang Financial Holding. YZJ Settlement Julius Baer Trust Company is currently the largest shareholder, with 24% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 5.5% of the shares outstanding respectively, Lido Point Investments Ltd. and T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. 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 6 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. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Yangzijiang Financial Holding

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. 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.

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in Yangzijiang Financial Holding Ltd.. In their own names, insiders own S$62m worth of stock in the S$1.2b company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

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

It seems that Private Companies own 39%, of the Yangzijiang Financial Holding stock. 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. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Yangzijiang Financial Holding you should know about.

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.