Key Insights

• Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, APT Medical's stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions
• 51% of the business is held by the top 8 shareholders
• Insiders own 28% of APT Medical

If you want to know who really controls APT Medical Inc. (SHSE:688617), 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 institutions with 37% ownership. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company.

Institutional investors was the group most impacted after the company's market cap fell to CN¥34b last week. However, the 34% one-year return to shareholders might have softened the blow. We would assume however, that they would be on the lookout for weakness in the future.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of APT Medical, beginning with the chart below.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About APT Medical?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in APT Medical. 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. 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 APT Medical's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in APT Medical. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Zhenghui Cheng with 25% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 5.5% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 4.6% by the third-largest shareholder.

We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent.

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 APT Medical

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.

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 APT Medical Inc.. Insiders own CN¥9.7b worth of shares in the CN¥34b company. That's quite meaningful. Most would say this shows a good degree of alignment with shareholders, especially in a company of this size. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

The general public-- including retail investors -- own 27% 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

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 8.0%, of the company's shares. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

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 APT Medical is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.

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.