Yahoo Finance Should You Worry About The 500com Limited’s (NYSE:WBAI) Shareholder Register?
Every investor in 500com Limited (NYSE:WBAI) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. Warren Buffett said that he likes ‘a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people’. So it’s nice to see some insider ownership, because it may suggest that management is owner-oriented.
500.com is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of US$433m, which means it wouldn’t have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below below, we can see that institutional investors have not yet purchased much of the company. Let’s take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about WBAI.
Check out our latest analysis for 500.com
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About 500.com?
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.
Institutions own less than 5% of 500.com. That indicates that the company is on the radar of some funds, but it isn’t particularly popular with professional investors at the moment. So if the company itself can improve over time, we may well see more institutional buyers in the future. It is not uncommon to see a big share price rise if multiple institutional investors are trying to buy into a stock at the same time. So check out the historic earnings trajectory, below, but keep in mind it’s the future that counts most.
500.com is not owned by hedge funds. Our information suggests that there isn’t any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.
Insider Ownership Of 500.com
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. 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 information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in 500com Limited. It has a market capitalization of just US$433m, and insiders have US$79m worth of shares in their own names. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public, with a 39% stake in the company, will not 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 Equity Ownership
With a stake of 8.3%, private equity firms could influence the WBAI board. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.
Private Company Ownership
It seems that Private Companies own 31%, of the WBAI stock. 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.
I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow for free .
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.
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.
