Key Insights

• Baozun's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public

• The top 11 shareholders own 51% of the company

• Insider ownership in Baozun is 12%

If you want to know who really controls Baozun Inc. (NASDAQ:BZUN), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 39% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn).

Meanwhile, institutions make up 34% of the company’s shareholders. 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 Baozun, beginning with the chart below.

View our latest analysis for Baozun

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Baozun?

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 Baozun. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Baozun, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.

We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Baozun. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Alibaba Group Holding Limited with 15% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 9.3% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 7.0% by the third-largest shareholder. Wenbin Qiu, who is the second-largest shareholder, also happens to hold the title of Chief Executive Officer.

A closer look at our ownership figures suggests that the top 11 shareholders have a combined ownership of 51% implying that 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.