Company Research Guide

This guide highlights resources available for researching companies. Need more assistance? Have a suggestion? Let us know!

The amount of information available about your company and which resources to use when researching your company will largely be determined by these factors:

Public or private? Generally, more data is available about public companies than about private ones -- public companies are required to disclose information to the SEC, private companies are not.

Research Approach: Primary sources for public company data are SEC filings, stock data, analysts reports, news articles, profiles and the company website. Availability of data on private companies is often limited to directories, news articles and the company website.
Example: National Fuel Gas (NFG) and Rich Products are the two largest firms in the Buffalo Niagara area, both have revenues of ~$2 billion. NFG is public, Rich Products is private -- more detailed information is available about NFG.

Parent or subsidiary? Information about subsidiaries and brands is often only available under the parent company’s name.

Research Approach: Researching a subsidiary or branch, requires researching the parent company as well.
Example: Fisher-Price (private company located in the Buffalo Niagara area) is a subsidiary of Mattel (public company based in California). Searching for information on Mattel will also turn up good data on Fisher-Price.

US or International? The amount of company information available varies from country to country, but if a non-US company has shares that trade on a US exchange, they must file with the SEC.

Research Approach: Primary sources for info on international companies are directories, profiles, news and SEC filings (if they have US shares)
Example: HSBC is an international bank headquartered in London. Because they have shares that trade on a US exchange (ticker: HBC), they must file with the SEC (form 20-F) and disclose data useful for business researchers.

Note: Not sure what SEC stands for? Need a definition for what "public company" means? Look it up! Investopedia, Finance-Glossary.com and the NY times Glossary of Financial and Business Terms are good reference sources.

Return to Top

To find the answers to the questions above (and more), use a company directory and check out the company website.

Company Directories: directories provide the basic information (location, industry, contacts, products, etc.) you need to get familiar with a company. Here are the best directories to start your research with:

• Business & Company Resource Center
• Hoovers: 42,000 public and non-public US and international companies. Provides descriptions of each company including financials, executives and competitors,
• Reference USA: 13 million public and private US companies. Provides basic information about each company

Note: Not finding your company? Check a specialized directory that provides more in-depth coverage of specific industries, countries or company types. See the Company Directories Guide for more information.

Company Website: Many, though not all, companies have some level of web presence. What a company says about itself on its website can be a valuable source for researchers. Look for a link labeled “About” or “Company Information” or “Investor Relations.” These tools can help find a company has a website:

• Yahoo! Finance Search, Business.com, and Accoona are business-focused search engines/directories.
• Google or another general search engine will search more broadly and can help pinpoint websites for smaller companies. Simply searching on company name will often yield good results. If the company has a common name, add in another search term such as the industry or location company.

Return to Top

The following resources provides access to more in-depth company profiles as well as news about companies.

Business & Company Resource Center

Coverage: Broad in scope - US and non-US, public and private companies, large and small

Type of Data Available: Profiles, News, Histories, Investment Reports, Financials, Rankings

Worth noting: great source for Investment Reports (also called equity research or broker reports or analyst reports). Click on Advanced Search and change the Content Area to "Investment Reports"

Business Source Premier

Coverage: Focused on large corporations - US and non-US, public and some large private companies

Type of Data Available: Profiles, SWOT Analyses, News and Journal Articles

Worth noting: great source for SWOT Analyses (Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)

Factiva

Coverage: Public and private, US and non-US companies, large and small

Type of Data Available: Profiles, News

Worth noting: best source Wall Street Journal articles

LexisNexis

Coverage: Public and private, US and non-US companies, large and small

Type of Data Available: Profiles, news, financials

Worth noting: great source for information on executives at companies. Click on "Reference" in the left-hand column, then on "Biographical Information"

Mergent

Coverage: Public companies only - 15,000 US and 20,000 non-US

Type of Data Available: Profiles and Financials

Worth noting: click on the "Portraits"tab to get a well-formatted and detailed company profile

Return to Top

Detailed financial data on private companies is hard to come by. Private companies have no disclosure requirements, tend to be much smaller than public ones, and there are over 25 million private companies in the US as compared to only ~25,000 public ones. Here's where to look for financials:

Private Companies:

• Directories such as Hoovers and Reference USA , are often the best and only sources. Remember, financials on privates companies are usually only estimates.
• While not required to do so, some larger private companies disclose some level of financial data on their website. For example, Dole is a private company that posts its annual reports on its website.
• US State Business Entity Databases: these databases do not go into much detail, but may be worth a look. See the Business Filings Databases page for a list and description of what's available from each state.

Public Companies:

• EDGAR Database: EDGAR stands for Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval
  • Provides direct access to all corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
  • For descriptions of the various types of SEC filings, check Thomson Research's Guide to SEC Filings
  • Remember , EDGAR is only for public companies that trade on a US exchange
  • Other countries may have equivalent resources to EDGAR -- for example SEDAR (System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval) is Canada's central database for corporate filings
  
  
• Mergent and LexisNexis: provide access to EDGAR data with value-added search functionality and are often easier to use than EDGAR. Also, they provide easy access to data beyond what's available from the SEC.
  
  
• Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) : provides aggregated access to historical and current financial information
  
  
• Annual Reports are a great source for financial and descriptive info about companies.
  • Current annual reports can often be found on the company's website
  • Older annual reports: the UB Library has a collection of annual reports from 1973 to 1995 on microfiche. Includes all companies traded on the American and New York Stock exchanges. Available in the Capen Multimedia Center, call number is MicFiche HG4028.B2 D56.
  • Free collections on the web include: AnnualReports.com , CAROL - Company Annual Reports On-Line , and AnnualReportService.com

Return to Top

• S&P Stock Reports (HG4907 .S72 print only) - 3,000 companies traded on the three major US exchanges -- NYSE, Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange
  
  
• ValueLine Investment Survey (HG 4971 M74 print only) - 1,700 public US and International companies
  
  
• Yahoo Finance, Big Charts, and Reuters Stocks are good free web resources for stock information.

Return to Top

• Non-Profits: For information on non-profits check the Guidestar database (free registration required)
  
  
• Lists/rankings:
  • Inc 500 , Forbes Lists and Fortune Lists provide a variety of rankings and lists
  • Business First of Buffalo's Book of Lists (print only - Ref HC108 B8 B84) is a great resource for lists of local Buffalo Niagara companies (ie: largest, fastest growing, most inventive, women owned, more)
  • TableBase: Summary statistics from a variety of business sources
  
  
• Blogs: many companies are blogging and what they say in their blogs can be useful for business researchers. For information about business blogging in general and for lists of companies that have business blogs, check out the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki and the Corporate Blogs List from The New PR Wiki.

Return to Top