Every investor in Clover Biopharmaceuticals, Ltd. (HKG:2197) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 29% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Clearly, individual investors benefitted the most after the company's market cap rose by HK$2.7b last week.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Clover Biopharmaceuticals.

View our latest analysis for Clover Biopharmaceuticals

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Clover Biopharmaceuticals?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Clover Biopharmaceuticals. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Clover Biopharmaceuticals' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Clover Biopharmaceuticals is not owned by hedge funds. Because actions speak louder than words, we consider it a good sign when insiders own a significant stake in a company. In Clover Biopharmaceuticals' case, its Top Key Executive, Peng Liang, is the largest shareholder, holding 18% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 15% and 7.8% of the stock. In addition, we found that Joshua G. Liang, the CEO has 1.6% of the shares allocated to their name.

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.

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 a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Clover Biopharmaceuticals

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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 Clover Biopharmaceuticals, Ltd.. It has a market capitalization of just HK$6.0b, and insiders have HK$1.3b worth of shares in their own names. 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 29% 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 Equity Ownership

With a stake of 23%, private equity firms could influence the Clover Biopharmaceuticals 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.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 6.1%, of the company's shares. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Clover Biopharmaceuticals better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Clover Biopharmaceuticals is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , 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.