Key Insights

• Industrial Bank's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public
• A total of 19 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
• Institutions own 22% of Industrial Bank

If you want to know who really controls Industrial Bank Co., Ltd. (SHSE:601166), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 46% stake, retail investors possess the maximum shares in the company. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

Meanwhile, private companies make up 30% of the company's shareholders.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Industrial Bank

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Industrial Bank?

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.

We can see that Industrial Bank does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Industrial Bank's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Industrial Bank is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Fujian Financial Investment Co., Ltd. with 17% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 8.4% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.3% by the third-largest shareholder.

After doing some more digging, we found that the top 19 have the combined ownership of 50% in the company, suggesting that no single shareholder has significant control over the company.

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 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 Industrial Bank

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.

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 data suggests that insiders own under 1% of Industrial Bank Co., Ltd. in their own names. However, it's possible that insiders might have an indirect interest through a more complex structure. It is a very large company, so it would be surprising to see insiders own a large proportion of the company. Though their holding amounts to less than 1%, we can see that board members collectively own CN¥26m worth of shares (at current prices). In this sort of situation, it can be more interesting to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 46% 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 30%, of the shares on issue. 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 Industrial Bank better, we need to consider many other factors. Be aware that Industrial Bank is showing 1 warning sign 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.