Information on Corporations and Businesses
This is a very basic guide to researching companies. For more information, see:
- Cleveland Law Library Guide to Business Information - Lots of links available on the web and via
Cleveland Public library. Tells where to obtain specific bits of information, such as stock transfer agent, market share, taxpayer id number, etc. - Zimmerman's Research Guides - Company Information
- Rutgers University Company Research Guide
- University at Buffalo Law Library Guide to Company Research
| Public Companies | SEC Filings | Private Companies | Secretary of State |
| Other Databases | Lexis & Westlaw | Company Websites |
Company Websites
The website will often have an investor link that will lead you to annual reports, stock charts, SEC filings and biographies of directors and executives. Use Business.com to find company web pages.
Secretary of State
Access corporate charters, articles of incorporation, UCC financing statements and termination statements. To access the Secretary of State’s office for each state, go to The National Association of Secretaries of State Contact Roster.
Westlaw-Public Information, Records and Filings>Business & Corporate Information>Business & Corporate Filings> Corporate Records & Business Registrations by State
LexisNexis - Corporation Filings - Public Records>Find a Business>Corporation Filings - Secretary of State filings for 49 states.
Public Companies
- A "public company" is a company listed on a stock exchange or traded in an over-the-counter market. In other words, a company that sells stock to the general public. These companies must file financial statements with the SEC.
- Information on public companies can be found via the SEC's IDEA database. There are also many databases available with information on public companies. It is much easier to find information on public companies than private companies.
- Some Free Sites for Public Company Information:
- Hoover's Online Directory information, top competitors, financials, news. A pay subscription will allow access to more information.
- ThomasNet - From the publishers of the Thomas Register. Find out who manufacturers or distributes a particular brand name or type of product. Find company profiles and web sites.
- Yahoo Finance News and profile information for companies. Free annual report service.
- Google Finance Company summary, company facts (number of employees, address, revenue and more), financials, stock quotes, news, blog posts, names of executives, companies in the same industry.
- Reuters.com: Company overview and key developments, stock quotes, risk evaluations, summary financial data and news. Longer reports available for a fee.
- Morningstar.com: Company profiles, financials and news.
- If you know on which exchange the companies' stock is traded, you can find profile information on the webpage for that stock exchange. See: New York Stock Exchange; NASDQ
- Zoominfo.com - Basic information, job openings, competitors, news, find employees.
Securities Exchange Commission:
- The SEC’s IDEA database (formerly called Edgar) has much information on public companies. All companies with at least 500 stockholders and or $500 in assets (or big private placement debts) must file financial disclosure documents with the SEC. Most filings since 1996 are on IDEA.
- What type of information is available via SEC filings? Annual reports, financial statements, liquidity, assets, pending litigation, credit agreements, executive bios, executive compensation.
- A 10-K is an annual report, while an 8-K is a current report with material events. See Description of SEC Forms
- The New IDEA Database- Instead of just containing forms filed with the SEC, the new database has tagged fields of information, enabling the public to search for the precise information they want and generate reports. Idea stands for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. See the SEC's Press Release. Currently, the new IDEA database allows for full text searching of documents for the past four years. Selecting Boolean and advanced searching, including addresses searches header information for filings from 1994-2009.
- There are databases that provide the same information as Edgar, but it may be easier to print or search. SECInfo.com is a free one. Westlaw, Lexis and Mergent Online are pay databases that make searching SEC filings easier and the library has subscriptions to all of them. See the Lexis and Westlaw sections, below.
Private Companies
Finding information on private companies is much more difficult. Dun & Bradstreet and other for-fee databases may help. Also try the state Secretary of State’s webpage.
Best free sites for Private Companies:
- Hoover's Online - Directory information, top competitors, financials, news.
- Forbes – America’s Largest Private Companies - private companies are not necessarily small, as you can see from this list with profile information.
- ThomasNet - From the publishers of the Thomas Register. Find out who manufacturers or distributes a particular brand name or type of product. Find company profiles and web sites.
- Zoominfo.com - Basic information, job openings, competitors, news, find employees.
Library Databases:
Databases from CSU's Main Library & Ohiolink-
See the Main Library's Business Subject Portal - Company Information -
- Hoover's Online - public and private, more comprehensive than what is on the web for free. Great place to find state of incorporation.
- ReferenceUSA - Directory info, sales figures, number of employees, company profile, names of officers, news, etc. For public companies, links to stock quotes and SEC filings. May have UCC filings and public filings such as tax liens. Info available varies by company. Info on both public and private companies.
- Mergent Online - public companies only. Great place to find state of incorporation.
- Standard & Poor's Net Advantage (company and stock information)
- ValueLine (current stock activity and analysis)
- IBISWorld (1991-): Provides business reports in industry market research, industry risk ratings, company research, global industry research, and economic and demographic data.
- Ohiolink Cluster Search for Business - searches numerous databases for news and articles
Lexis Law School Account
Under the Total Litigator tab, go to Early Case Assessment>Companies. It will search the All Company Information Database, several news databases, cases and BNA litigation reports all at once.
Under the News & Business tab>Company & Financial, you will find many resources. For maximum info, try this combined database: All Company Information (excluding Investext & D&B), which contains information on public, private and foreign companies. A somewhat less comprehensive database is Major Company Group File.
For simple profiles, try U.S. Company Reports, which is a combined database of profiles. News & Business tab>Company & Financial>Company Profiles & Directories>U.S. Company Reports . Includes private and public companies.
SEC Filings databases: Under News & Business tab>Company & Financial, there is an SEC filings database and a real-time filings database. May allow for more sophisicated searching than the SEC's database.
Corporation Filings - Public Records>Find a Business>Corporation Filings - Secretary of State filings for 49 states.
Westlaw Law School Account-
- Hoover's Company Profiles (Business and News Tab under Company Information) An in-depth look at a company's financial and operational information, including officers and directors, products, and competitors. Public and private companies, some foreign companies.
- Hoover's Company Capsules (Business and News Tab under Company Information) General company overview, key people, headquarters location, top competitors, and key financial information. Public, private and some foreign companies.
- EDGAR - S.E.C. Filings (Full coverage from 2004, selected coverage from 1993, some older documents) and Securities and Exchange Commission Corporate Filings (Back to 1987, only for companies traded on the New York and American Stock Exchanges). More sophisticated searching than the SEC's Edgar database.
- LITPREP - the law school plan contains the LITPREP by state databases, but can not search all states at once. Contains information from the Secretary of State, including registered agent. Example- Litprep-OH. From the directory, Litigation>Litigation Preparation by State.
- Public Information, Records and Filings>Business & Corporate Information>Business & Corporate Filings> Corporate Records & Business Registrations by State
Others
The premier pay service is Dun & Bradstreet. It is on Westlaw and Lexis (but not part of the law school accounts), or you can order off the Dun & Bradstreet website. D&B has information on private companies that is hard to find elsewhere.
Alacra is another subscription database. Alacra searches D&B, Thomson Financial, Factiva, Reuters and many others. See their list of content partners. Alacra lets you search these databases independently, or search across them for information. It has a free AlacraSearch which searches webpages in various industries, one of them being law firms.
News Sources
- Newspapers - Lexis (ALLNWS or other) and Westlaw (ALLNEWS or other) , America's Newspapers: Newsbank and many more available to CSU students. Also available via the Cleveland Public Library. Voyager provides links to free newspapers on the web.
- Crain's Cleveland Business - password at the circulation desk to obtain older stories. Paper copies retained for 3 months. Also on Lexis.
- Wall Street Journal (1984-). Also on Lexis.
Free Internet news sources:
- NEWSiness.com: the latest news in brief from many respected sources
- MarketWatch.com: Part of the Wall Street Journal digital network
- BizJournals: An internet business journal.
Links Checked , SA, 5-7-2009