ASMedia Technology Inc.'s (TWSE:5269) top owners are public companies with 39% stake, while 38% is held by individual investors

Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by public companies in ASMedia Technology indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 5 shareholders own 51% of the company
• 15% of ASMedia Technology is held by Institutions

If you want to know who really controls ASMedia Technology Inc. (TWSE:5269), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that public companies own the lion's share in the company with 39% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Individual investors, on the other hand, account for 38% of the company's stockholders.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of ASMedia Technology.

See our latest analysis for ASMedia Technology

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About ASMedia Technology?

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.

We can see that ASMedia Technology does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of ASMedia Technology, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in ASMedia Technology. ASUSTeK Computer Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 33% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 6.6% and 6.0% of the stock. Additionally, the company's CEO Che-Wei Lin directly holds 1.1% of the total shares outstanding.

On looking further, we found that 51% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of ASMedia Technology

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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 most recent data indicates that insiders own some shares in ASMedia Technology Inc.. The insiders have a meaningful stake worth NT$2.8b. Most would see this as a real positive. Most would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 38% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 6.6% stake in ASMedia Technology. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

Public Company Ownership

It appears to us that public companies own 39% of ASMedia Technology. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand ASMedia Technology better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for ASMedia Technology that you should be aware of before investing here.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter 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.