Do Directors Own China Gas Holdings Limited (HKG:384) Shares?

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If you want to know who really controls China Gas Holdings Limited (HKG:384), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said ‘Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.’

China Gas Holdings is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of HK$131b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about 384.

View our latest analysis for China Gas Holdings

SEHK:384 Ownership Summary February 15th 19
SEHK:384 Ownership Summary February 15th 19

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About China Gas Holdings?

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.

We can see that China Gas Holdings does have institutional investors; and they hold 16% of the stock. 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 China Gas Holdings’s earnings history, below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

SEHK:384 Income Statement Export February 15th 19
SEHK:384 Income Statement Export February 15th 19

Hedge funds don’t have many shares in China Gas Holdings. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.

Insider Ownership Of China Gas Holdings

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.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of China Gas Holdings Limited. It is very interesting to see that insiders have a meaningful HK$13b stake in this HK$131b business. 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

With a 18% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over 384. 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 30%, 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.

Public Company Ownership

Public companies currently own 26% of 384 stock. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It’s always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand China Gas Holdings better, we need to consider many other factors.

Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow .

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.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

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