Key Insights

• TI Cloud's significant insider ownership suggests inherent interests in company's expansion
• A total of 3 investors have a majority stake in the company with 52% ownership
• Ownership research, combined with past performance data can help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls TI Cloud Inc. (HKG:2167), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 50% stake, individual insiders possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And following last week's 23% decline in share price, insiders suffered the most losses.

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

See our latest analysis for TI Cloud

What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About TI Cloud?

Small companies that are not very actively traded often lack institutional investors, but it's less common to see large companies without them.

There are many reasons why a company might not have any institutions on the share registry. It may be hard for institutions to buy large amounts of shares, if liquidity (the amount of shares traded each day) is low. If the company has not needed to raise capital, institutions might lack the opportunity to build a position. Alternatively, there might be something about the company that has kept institutional investors away. TI Cloud might not have the sort of past performance institutions are looking for, or perhaps they simply have not studied the business closely.

It looks like hedge funds own 5.3% of TI Cloud shares. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. The company's CEO Qiang Wu is the largest shareholder with 34% of shares outstanding. Fortune Ascend Holdings Ltd is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and Wei Pan holds about 7.8% of the company stock. Interestingly, the third-largest shareholder, Wei Pan 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 3 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 is some analyst coverage of the stock, but it could still become more well known, with time.

Insider Ownership Of TI Cloud

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of TI Cloud Inc.. Insiders have a HK$856m stake in this HK$1.7b business. We would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 35% 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 10%, of the TI Cloud 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:

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.

I always like to check for a history of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart of historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.