Key Insights

• Significantly high institutional ownership implies Vitasoy International Holdings' stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
• The top 12 shareholders own 51% of the company
• 16% of Vitasoy International Holdings is held by insiders

Every investor in Vitasoy International Holdings Limited (HKG:345) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 43% to be precise, is institutions. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

And so it follows that institutional investors was the group most impacted after the company's market cap fell to HK$7.5b last week after a 10% drop in the share price. This set of investors may especially be concerned about the current loss, which adds to a one-year loss of 59% for shareholders. Institutions or "liquidity providers" control large sums of money and therefore, these types of investors usually have a lot of influence over stock price movements. As a result, if the downtrend continues, institutions may face pressures to sell Vitasoy International Holdings, which might have negative implications on individual investors.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Vitasoy International Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Vitasoy International Holdings?

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.

We can see that Vitasoy International Holdings does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. 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 Vitasoy International Holdings, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Vitasoy International Holdings. The company's largest shareholder is First Sentier Investors (Australia) IM Ltd, with ownership of 17%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 9.4% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 6.8% by the third-largest shareholder. Yau-lai Lo, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Top Key Executive. Furthermore, CEO Roberto Guidetti is the owner of 0.5% of the company's shares.

Looking at the shareholder registry, we can see that 51% of the ownership is controlled by the top 12 shareholders, meaning that no single shareholder has a majority interest in the ownership.

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 a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Vitasoy International Holdings

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

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Vitasoy International Holdings Limited. It has a market capitalization of just HK$7.5b, and insiders have HK$1.2b worth of shares in their own names. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 41% 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.

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. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Vitasoy International Holdings .

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.