Key Insights

• Significant control over Anhui Gujing Distillery by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• The largest shareholder of the company is Anhui Gujing Group Co.,Ltd. with a 51% stake
• Institutional ownership in Anhui Gujing Distillery is 23%

If you want to know who really controls Anhui Gujing Distillery Co., Ltd. (SZSE:000596), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that private companies own the lion's share in the company with 51% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

And individual investors on the other hand have a 25% ownership in the company.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Anhui Gujing Distillery.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Anhui Gujing Distillery?

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.

Anhui Gujing Distillery 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 Anhui Gujing Distillery, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Anhui Gujing Distillery. Anhui Gujing Group Co.,Ltd. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 51% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 2.8% and 2.4% of the stock.

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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of Anhui Gujing Distillery

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 data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Given we are not picking up on insider ownership, we may have missing data. Therefore, it would be interesting to assess the CEO compensation and tenure, here.

General Public Ownership

With a 25% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Anhui Gujing Distillery. 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 51%, 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:

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. Be aware that Anhui Gujing Distillery is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those can't be ignored...

If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.