InfoGuides: Business Plans: Find Company Information

Finding Company Information

The first thing you want to determine when researching a company is whether it's private or public, since this determines how much company information is publicly available, as well as the type of resources you'll want to search.

Public Companies:

"A public company is a company with securities (equity and debt) owned and traded by the general public through the public capital markets. Shares of a public company are openly traded and widely distributed. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), any company with more than $10 million in assets and 500 shareholders of record is required to register with the SEC, and is subject to its reporting standards and regulations. In a public company, the ownership is shared between the shareholders, including the board, management and public shareholders." investinganswers.com

The databases below are recommended for public company research. Many of them are also very useful for private company research.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
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Delivers comprehensive suite of authoritative financial information. Download up to 15 years of key financial information on over 400,000 global private companies; integrated screening and searching for public and private companies; full company reports in pdf format; ability to view competitors on both private and public companies. View a tutorial on this database here.
NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive source of business, industry, and investment information. Includes data and analysis of industries, companies, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, indexes, and current news gathered from S&P publications.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
To find company information, Choose "Companies" on the right side of the page. Get a snapshot of a company with links to more detailed information. Results may include Company information, news, SEC filings, legal information, etc.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
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Covers scholarly journals for business topics such as marketing, management, human resources, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Includes author profiles, financial data, books, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, company profiles, SWOT analyses, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, datamonitor, and country reports from 1886.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
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Try the Factiva link generator!- https://library.gmu.edu/factiva-link-generator
Search for company by name or ticker on the Company tab at the top. Factiva also contains company information and data through the search function, as well as international business and news coverage from newspapers, newswires, magazines, trade journals, radio and TV transcripts, and websites.

ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new window
The ABI/INFORM Collection includes international coverage and provides researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.
Hoover's Company Records This link opens in a new window
Hoover's Company Records provides access to profiles of more than 40,000 companies, 600 industries, and 225,000 key executives.

Private Companies:

"A private company is different from a public company in that its stock is not traded on public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, American Stock Exchange, etc. Instead, shares of private companies are offered, owned and traded privately among interested investors." investinganswers.com

Researching private companies can be challenging; privately held companies do not have to disclose information to the SEC. This guide provides information sources which tend to be the most useful. In addition to the databases listed below, you may find useful information in the list of Public Company databases.

NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive source of business, industry, and investment information. Includes data and analysis of industries, companies, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, indexes, and current news gathered from S&P publications.
CareerShift This link opens in a new window
Excellent resource for locating key personnel in public and private companies, including different locations. You can search by job title, company name, keywords, or location. To search for companies, click the "my companies" tab on the top of the page. THIS DATABASE REQUIRES SETTING UP A USERNAME AND PASSWORD LOG-IN
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
To find company information, Choose "Companies" on the right side of the page. Get a snapshot of a company with links to more detailed information. Results may include Company information, news, SEC filings, legal information, etc.
Mergent Supply Chain This link opens in a new window
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Find, filter and organize information about companies and industries. Comprehensive coverage is provided for all companies that are actively traded on the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ.
American City Business Journals This link opens in a new window
BizLink- Includes the Washington Business Journal and numerous other major US cities
Gale Directory Library This link opens in a new window
ncludes Gale directories such as Brands and their Companies; Business Rankings Annual; Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources; Market Share Reporter and Wards Business Directory of US Public & Private Companies.
Hoover's Company Records This link opens in a new window
Hoover's Company Records provides access to profiles of more than 40,000 companies, 600 industries, and 225,000 key executives.

Mergent Archives This link opens in a new window
An indexed collection of historical corporate and industry related documents. Includes digitized corporate (Moody’s) manuals, municipal & government manuals, annual reports, industry reports, and Ford Equity Research Reports, as well as the Key Business Ratios, country reports, bond reports, the Million Dollar Directory Index, Hoover's Handbooks, commodity yearbooks, and First Research industry research reports.

Access Mergent corporate manuals (formerly Moody's) published since 1909 covering Bank & Finance, Industrial, International, OTC Industrial, OTC Unlisted, Public Utility, and Transportation. Historical and current data on public companies worldwide includes companies’ history, properties, mergers, joint ventures, subsidiaries, officers & directors, financial data, and more. Also includes municipal & government reports, annual and industry reports, Ford Equity Research Reports, and EDGAR.
Uniworld Online This link opens in a new window
Includes two multinational business contact directories (American Firms Operating in Foreign Countries and Foreign Firms Operating in the United States) covering more than 20,000 industries in over 200 countries. Provides information on headquarters, branches, subsidiaries, and affiliates of multinational firms.
ProQuest Historical Annual Reports This link opens in a new window
Annual reports (1844-current) available for over 800 companies, 43,000 reports, 1.3M pages. Searchable puff images with indexed data such as: financial, Fortune 500 ranking, industry classification, key people, geographic location, auditor and related companies. It can also be browsed by company name, related names, industry or date.
Regional Business News This link opens in a new window
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Incorporates full-text coverage of more than 80 regional business journals, newspapers and newswires covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States. Complements Business Source Complete.

Leadership connect Allows searching and browsing within individual directories or across all directories using single or multiple criteria, such as name, job title, industry, and geographical location. Contains information on the Congress, federal government, state governments, cities and counties, courts and chambers, companies, news media, law and lobbying firms, government affairs & political advocacy associations, nonprofits, and foreign governments & IGOs

LinkedIn: Companies Use this professional networking site to browse for companies by indsutry.

Nexis Uni has Mergers and Acquisitions info, along with the regular company reports. Click on "Company Info" on the left, and then "Mergers and Acquisitions" in the drop-down box on the right.

An initial public offering, or IPO, is the first sale of stock by a company to the public. A company can raise money by issuing either debt or equity. If the company has never issued equity to the public, it's known as an IPO. (Forbes Investopedia)

NetAdvantage- (library research database) click the "Research" tab on top for investment news

Hoover's IPO Reports

Provides information about companies from the time they file registration through their first year as a public company.

Other (online) resouces to try- (Research Tip: try these keywords (in quotes) when searching for information on IPOs)

"initial public offering"
"going public"
"start ups"

Going Public Mason Libraries E-Journal. Complete data on IPO companies in US from 1975 to 1998.

Investment Dealers Digest Mason Libraries E-Journal. Weekly listing of IPOs in the US and The IPO 100, a performance review of the most recent 100 IPO companies. Online back to 1991.

Venture Capital (London) Mason Libraries E-Journal. A listing of venture-backed IPOs, recent venture-backed IPOs aftermarket, and PVC Index (Post-Venture Capital Index).

Other resources:

IPO Expert IPO companies, national & international, for the past 12 months, filings, calendar, aftermarket performance, information on secondary offerings.

IPOs (123jump)

Yahoo! Finance IPOs