Private companies are Centurion Corporation Limited's (SGX:OU8) biggest owners and were rewarded after market cap rose by S$34m last week

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by private companies in Centurion indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The largest shareholder of the company is Centurion Global Limited with a 51% stake
• Insider ownership in Centurion is 21%

If you want to know who really controls Centurion Corporation Limited (SGX:OU8), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 51% to be precise, is private companies. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As a result, private companies were the biggest beneficiaries of last week’s 10% gain.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Centurion

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Centurion?

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.

Institutions have a very small stake in Centurion. That indicates that the company is on the radar of some funds, but it isn't particularly popular with professional investors at the moment. So if the company itself can improve over time, we may well see more institutional buyers in the future. 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.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Centurion. Our data shows that Centurion Global Limited is the largest shareholder with 51% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 7.6% and 5.3%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Two of the top three shareholders happen to be Senior Key Executive and Co-Chairman of the Board, respectively. That is, insiders feature higher up in the heirarchy of 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. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Centurion

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.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Centurion Corporation Limited. Insiders have a S$75m stake in this S$366m business. 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-- including retail investors -- own 27% 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 51%, of the Centurion stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Centurion better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Centurion (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about.

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.