Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by private companies in Agile Group Holdings indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• The top 2 shareholders own 55% of the company
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls Agile Group Holdings Limited (HKG:3383), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are private companies with 49% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And last week, private companies endured the biggest losses as the stock fell by 25%.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Agile Group Holdings.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Agile Group Holdings?

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.

Less than 5% of Agile Group Holdings is held by institutional investors. This suggests that some funds have the company in their sights, but many have not yet bought shares in it. If the business gets stronger from here, we could see a situation where more institutions are keen to buy. It is not uncommon to see a big share price rise if multiple institutional investors are trying to buy into a stock at the same time. So check out the historic earnings trajectory, below, but keep in mind it's the future that counts most.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Agile Group Holdings. Top Coast Investment Limited is currently the largest shareholder, with 49% of shares outstanding. Sze Long Chen is the second largest shareholder owning 6.1% of common stock, and Zhuo Lin Chen holds about 2.6% of the company stock. Zhuo Lin Chen, who is the third-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Chairman of the Board.

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. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.

Insider Ownership Of Agile Group Holdings

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Agile Group Holdings Limited. As individuals, the insiders collectively own HK$324m worth of the HK$3.5b company. This shows at least some alignment. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 37% stake in Agile Group Holdings. 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 49%, of the Agile Group Holdings 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:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Agile Group Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Agile Group Holdings (2 are a bit unpleasant) 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. 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.