Key Insights

• Yalla Group's significant insider ownership suggests inherent interests in company's expansion
• A total of 2 investors have a majority stake in the company with 55% ownership
• Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock

If you want to know who really controls Yalla Group Limited (NYSE:YALA), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual insiders with 43% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And following last week's 6.3% 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 Yalla Group.

See our latest analysis for Yalla Group

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yalla Group?

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.

Institutions have a very small stake in Yalla Group. That indicates that the company is on the radar of some funds, but it isn't particularly popular with professional investors at the moment. So if the company itself can improve over time, we may well see more institutional buyers in the future. When multiple institutional investors want to buy shares, we often see a rising share price. The past revenue trajectory (shown below) can be an indication of future growth, but there are no guarantees.

Yalla Group is not owned by hedge funds. The company's CEO Tao Yang is the largest shareholder with 38% of shares outstanding. With 18% and 5.9% of the shares outstanding respectively, Orchid Asia Group Management, Ltd. and SIG Asia Investments, LLLP are the second and third largest shareholders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Yalla Group

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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Yalla Group Limited. Insiders have a US$375m stake in this US$881m business. 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

With a 30% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Yalla Group. 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 24%, private equity firms could influence the Yalla Group board. Sometimes we see private equity stick around for the long term, but generally speaking they have a shorter investment horizon and -- as the name suggests -- don't invest in public companies much. After some time they may look to sell and redeploy capital elsewhere.

Next Steps:

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Yalla Group is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

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.