To get a sense of who is truly in control of Gushengtang Holdings Limited (HKG:2273), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. We can see that individual investors own the lion's share in the company with 43% 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$415m last week.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Gushengtang Holdings, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Gushengtang Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Gushengtang Holdings?

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.

Gushengtang Holdings already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. 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. 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 Gushengtang Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Gushengtang Holdings is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Action Thrive Group Limited, with ownership of 12%. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 9.5% and 6.9% of the stock. Zhiliang Tu, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Chief Executive Officer.

We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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

Insider Ownership Of Gushengtang Holdings

The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

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.

Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Gushengtang Holdings Limited. It is a pretty big company, so it is generally a positive to see some potentially meaningful alignment. In this case, they own around HK$1.2b worth of shares (at current prices). It is good to see this level of investment by insiders. You can check here to see if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 43% 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

We can see that Private Companies own 24%, of the shares on issue. 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 like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.