Key Insights

• Significant control over Yunnan Tin by private companies implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions
• 50% of the business is held by the top 9 shareholders
• Institutional ownership in Yunnan Tin is 14%

If you want to know who really controls Yunnan Tin Company Limited (SZSE:000960), 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 private companies with 44% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

As market cap fell to CN¥23b last week, private companies would have faced the highest losses than any other shareholder groups of the company.

In the chart below, we zoom in on the different ownership groups of Yunnan Tin.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Yunnan Tin?

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.

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

Yunnan Tin is not owned by hedge funds. Yunnan Tin Group Company Limited is currently the company's largest shareholder with 33% of shares outstanding. With 11% and 1.4% of the shares outstanding respectively, Yunnan Tin Group (Holding) Company Limited and Huarong Ruitong Equity Investment Management Co., Ltd. are the second and third largest shareholders.

On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 9 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.

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 Yunnan Tin

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.

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.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. Not all jurisdictions have the same rules around disclosing insider ownership, and it is possible we have missed something, here. So you can click here learn more about the CEO.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 42% stake in Yunnan Tin. While this group can't necessarily call the shots, it can certainly have a real influence on how the company is run.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 44%, 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 Yunnan Tin better, we need to consider many other factors.

I always like to check for a history of revenue growth. You can too, by accessing this free chart of historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph.

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.