Key Insights

• Significant control over Mercurity Fintech Holding by individual investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The top 5 shareholders own 51% of the company
• Insiders own 29% of Mercurity Fintech Holding

Every investor in Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc. (NASDAQ:MFH) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are individual investors with 47% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Individual investors gained the most after market cap touched US$117m last week, while insiders who own 29% also benefitted.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Mercurity Fintech Holding, beginning with the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Mercurity Fintech Holding

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Mercurity Fintech Holding?

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.

Mercurity Fintech Holding 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 Mercurity Fintech Holding, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Mercurity Fintech Holding. Apollo Multi Asset Management LLP is currently the largest shareholder, with 23% of shares outstanding. With 8.6% and 7.6% of the shares outstanding respectively, Hanqi Li and Hong Mei Zhou are the second and third largest shareholders.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 5 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

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. As far as we can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Mercurity Fintech Holding

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Mercurity Fintech Holding Inc.. Insiders own US$34m worth of shares in the US$117m company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 47% stake in Mercurity Fintech Holding. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Mercurity Fintech Holding better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Mercurity Fintech Holding that you should be aware of before investing here.

If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data.

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.