Finding Business Information

Brendan Rapple AD700

Advancing Studies 9/29/04

Many Types of Business Info

• General Information on Business

• Information on Companies

• Information on Finance, Investments etc.

• Information on International or Global Business

• Information on Industries

• Economic Information

• Information on Small Business

• Information on Business Organization

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Guide

How can I find . . .

1. The address of a company?

2. What business is at a particular address?

3. What person is at a particular address?

4. Who owns a company?

5. The parent of a company?

6. The sales, or other financial data for a company?

7. Info on private companies?

8. Info on public companies?

9. A brand name?

10. If anyone is using a name I'm thinking of for my business?

11. Articles on a company?

12. An article which appeared in the Star?

13. Companies ranked by sales?

14. How a given industry is doing?

15. Information on a businessperson?

16. What SIC codes are, and how I can use them in these databases?

17. Articles which appeared in the Wall Street Journal?

18. Trade associations for a particular industry?

19. Trade magazines for a particular industry?

20. Wholesalers?

21. A company's 800 number?

Organizational Research

• How important are leadership courses in developing leadership?

• Is leadership learned or innate?

• Should teams be multi-departmental or from a single department?

• What do we mean by learning organizations?

• How is an ethical approach to business best fostered?

• Who makes decisions?

• Should all levels of staff be involved in decision-making?

– etc., etc. etc.

Searching for Company Information

Why Learn How to Research a Company?

• Helps to prepare for job interviews.

• People in strategic planning, market research, advertising, sales, public relations etc. need information on their competitors.

• Useful when making personal investment decisions.

• To find out more about a company’s products.

• Maybe you’re suing a company!

• For this class’s assignment.

• A vast amount of info. available in print and electronically

• Still, no one definitive way to conduct business research on a particular company

Company Research

Very important to know the following:

• Proper and full company name

• Corporate headquarters' address

• Company's form of ownership

Company Research

• Not always easy.

• Company identity often complex question.

• Many companies have similar names, but are separate, distinct companies based in different cities. 

• Ford may refer to Ford Motor Company or The Ford Foundation. • Subsidiaries may be easily confused with their parent companies. 

RJR Nabisco, for example, is a public company which owns subsidiaries Nabisco and RJ Reynolds.

Company Research

• Form of ownership not always easy to guess. 

• Large famous companies, e.g. Hallmark Cards,  may be private.  

• Smaller local companies, such as First Federal Savings Bank of Youngstown, may be publicly owned.

• Also companies are bought and sold daily. A company that was independently owned may be purchased by a public company.

• Private companies occasionally go public as they grow and develop a need for more capital. 

• Subsidiaries and divisions change ownership, operating  under new parent companies. 

Is the company U.S. or foreign-owned?

• Different reference sources often focus on

» National» Regional» International» Multinational companies

• The more intricate the organizational structure of the company, the more complex it usually is to uncover details about its individual parts.

Companies Located in the U.S.

• Yahoo! Business and Economy: Companies: Directories: Regional: U.S. Stateshttp://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Directories/Companies/

Provides links to business directories and yellow pages that are subdivided by geographical location and which can be searched by company name, business type, location.

• Big Book http://bigbook.com/Nationwide yellow pages that is updated monthly. Includes over 11 million US and Canadian companies which can be searched by name or type of business.

Locally-Owned Companies

• The Boston Globe database (full-text from 1980)

• Lexis-Nexis Academic (full-text of 100s of newspapers).

International Companies

• Europages, the European Business Directory http://www.europages.com/

Contains information on 500,000 companies, from 30 European countries, from all activity sectors.

Is the Company Public or Private?

Public Companies– Trade stock on open financial market -- sell stock to general

public.

– Required by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose financial information.

– Must provide annual reports to shareholders

– Thus, financial info. always available for a public company.

– As a result of 1929 crash, people have right to know about publicly traded companies.

Public Companies

• Type of Info. Disclosed:

• Broad Financial data, e.g.» revenues

» expenses

» profits

» summary of assets and liabilities

Public Companies

• Type of Info. Not Disclosed:

• marketing strategies

• production costs

• other day-to-day operations

• trade secrets, e.g. ingredients in coke, in Mrs. Field’s cookies etc.

• whiles salaries/fringe benefits of key executives must be disclosed, hourly wages paid to ordinary employees need not be

Finding Financial Information about a Company

• Important to distinguish between

– Annual Report to Stockholders (ARS)

– Financial reports submitted to SEC

Annual Report to Stockholders (ARS)

• Glossy, upbeat brochure mailed annually to stockholders

• It typically contains– financial statements– photos– graphics– considerable narrative

• Designed to present best possible picture of company

• Often viewed as little more than public relations piece

• Still, bad news cannot be ignored, though it may be played down

or euphemistically explained away

• Moreover, GAAP and SEC regulations must be followed

• Much useful info. can be found in an ARS

Form 10-K Reports

• Detailed financial publication• no artistic photos

• no striking graphs

• no flowery narrative

• avoids the company hype

• More specific financial info. than in the annual report

Analysts’ Reports

• Then there are the analysts’ reports, often from Wall Street, produced by such companies as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Salomon Smith Barney etc.

• These are supposed to “tell it as it is”, i.e. this company is going under within six months and only a fool would buy shares in it!!

Databases Useful for Locating Financial Info about a Company

• D&B Million Dollar Database

• This database contains information on over 1.6 million public and private companies in the

United States and Canada.

Databases Useful for Locating Analysts’ Reports

• General BusinessFile ASAP Includes three databases, Business Index (index

to over 900business periodicals) , Investext (analysts reports) and Company ProFile (directory of over 100,000 public and private companies).

Subsidiaries of Publicly Held Companies

• Not required to file separate disclosure documents.

• Relevant info. (especially financial) on affiliates is attributed to parent company --- analogy of child’s phone no. being under parents’ name.

• Bigger the parent company, more difficult it is to research a single component of its operations.

• Often as difficult as finding info. on a private company.

Useful Databases for Researching Public Companies

• Subscribed Databases– ABI/Inform Global (1971--. Updated monthly)

ABI/INFORM includes indexing and abstracting of more than 1000 international journals in management, marketing and

general business journals with full text images back to 1988.

– Business & Industry (1994-present) Broad based U. S. and international business information database. Search using keywords and/or selections from a set of pop-up index: company, concept term, marketing term,

industry, SIC/product code, journal.

Useful Databases for Researching Public Companies

• Subscribed Databases (cont.)– Dun's Million Dollar Database (annual)

A directory database providing information on the largest US public and private companies.

– General BusinessFile ASAP (current three years) Includes three databases, Business Index (index to over 900 business periodicals), Investext (analysts reports) and Company ProFile (directory of over 100,000 public and

private companies). Full text of 460 journals.

Useful Databases for Researching Public Companies

• Subscribed Databases (cont.)– Lexis-Nexis Academic

Extensive full-text database of legal and business

information including newspapers.

Useful Websites for Researching Public Companies

• Free Web Sites:– Hoover’s http://www.hoovers.com/

Although much of the in-depth Company Profile information in Hoover’s is fee-based, company contact information is readily available for about 10,000 companies. Most of these are publicly listed US companies.

Private Companies

• Usually about 25 shareholders.

• Privately owned stock is not available for market trade.

• Stockholders typically the principals in the co., e.g.• founders• members of their families• key employees

• No disclosure of information is required of the co. according to Federal Securities laws.

Useful Databases for Researching Private Companies

• Subscribed Databases – Most of those listed for public companies, especially

• ABI/Inform Global

• Business & Industry

• Dun's Million Dollar Database

• General BusinessFile ASAP

• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe

However, it is often very difficult to find good info. on private companies

A Useful Website for Researching Private Companies

• Forbes 500 Top Private Companies

http://www.forbes.com/private500/

Forbes magazine makes available its list of top private companies over the past three years.

Researching a Particular Type or Sector of Business

• Business & Industry (1994-present) Broad based U. S. and international business information database. Search using keywords and/or selections from a set of pop-up index: company, concept term, marketing term,

industry, SIC/product code, journal.

Researching a Particular Type or Sector of Business

• Reuters Business InsightThis database accesses the full text of over 250 market research reports in five vertical markets: financial services, energy, healthcare, consumer goods, and telecommunications. It also accesses many reports relating to the e-commerce market.