What You Need To Know About Yalla Group Limited's (NYSE:YALA) Investor Composition

Every investor in Yalla Group Limited (NYSE:YALA) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Yalla Group isn't enormous, but it's not particularly small either. It has a market capitalization of US$2.3b, which means it would generally expect to see some institutions on the share registry. In the chart below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Yalla Group.

Check out our latest analysis for Yalla Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yalla Group?

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.

Yalla Group 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. 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 Yalla Group, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Yalla Group is not owned by hedge funds. With a 43% stake, CEO Tao Yang is the largest shareholder. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 21% and 8.5% of the stock. Interestingly, the third-largest shareholder, Jianfeng Xu is also a Member of the Board of Directors, again, indicating strong insider ownership amongst the company's top shareholders.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 2 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Yalla Group

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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.

It seems that insiders own more than half the Yalla Group Limited stock. This gives them a lot of power. That means insiders have a very meaningful US$1.2b stake in this US$2.3b business. Most would argue this is a positive, showing strong alignment with shareholders. You can click here to see if they have been selling down their stake.

General Public Ownership

The general public, with a 13% stake in the company, will not 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 Equity Ownership

With a stake of 27%, private equity firms could influence the Yalla Group board. 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.

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 Yalla Group that you should be aware of.

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. 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.
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