Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by individual investors in Qudian indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy

• 44% of the business is held by the top 25 shareholders

• Insider ownership in Qudian is 29%

If you want to know who really controls Qudian Inc. (NYSE:QD), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 56% to be precise, is individual investors. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And individual insiders on the other hand have a 29% ownership in the company. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones.

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

Check out our latest analysis for Qudian

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Qudian?

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.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Qudian. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Qudian's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Qudian is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is the CEO Min Luo with 29% of shares outstanding. Guosheng Financial Holding Inc., Asset Management Arm is the second largest shareholder owning 5.6% of common stock, and Acadian Asset Management LLC holds about 3.2% of the company stock.

A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority.

While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.