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| Research Guides |
| Business - Corporations |
| Official Corporate Records | Company Annual Reports |
| Finding Company Web Sites | Company Rankings |
| Living or Dead? | Corporate Histories |
| SEC's EDGAR | Printed Corporate Directories |
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Do you need to do some research on a specific company? Use our Company Research Flowchart. | |
Official Corporate Records
The official (and current) corporate records for U.S. publicly traded companies are available through EDGAR. EDGAR filings are submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and are mirrored on many sites, some for free and some for fee (of course, the SEC provides them for free). It should also be noted that the actual annual report to shareholders (except in the case of investment companies) need not be submitted on EDGAR, although some companies do so voluntarily. However, the annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB, which contains much of the same information, is required to be filed on EDGAR. These electronic financial reports are only available for current years (from the mid 1990s).
Microfiche copies of 10-K Reports are available for U.S. companies from 1984-1990. These company reports microfiche are available in the microforms area in the Lower Level.
Company Annual Reports
If you need a copy of a company's annual report to shareholders, you can request them directly from the company, but these two web services will supply them to you for free. Note: some companies do submit their annual report to shareholders to EDGAR (listed above), so you should try there first.
Anyone can request individual copies of the current year's annual reports on various companies (they do not have reports for every company). Reports will be delivered to your home--at no charge. (Note: after you request reports from this service, they will send you an investor's newsletter for a brief period of time. You are under no obligation to subscribe to the newsletter subsequently.)
Provides reports for stocks which display the club symbol in the Journal's stock listings. Reports will be sent by mail.
Company Web Sites
A reminder! You will not find ALL the information you need for ALL companies on the web. Many of these web sites provide basic current data (income statement, balance sheet, stock price, earnings, etc.), brief profiles, directory-type information (address, telephone, names of personnel, stock symbol, etc.). They tend to focus on publicly traded companies and they tend to be for U.S. companies, though some provide information on private companies and on international firms.
Indicates a site with information on non-U.S. companies.
According to the web site, it is "your One-Stop for a complete listing of Annual Reports published on the internet."
Has a limited number of company reports for companies in Europe, Asia, and the United Kingdom.
Links to other sites that offer information about companies (public/private, US/foreign), and is organized by country. Most are offer information free of charge, but some are fee based sites (they're clearly marked). Not a bad starting place.
Information on high-tech companies and industries.
Provides information on over 1.6 million public and private companies (across all industries) with sales of one million dollars or more, or 20+ employees, or branches with 50+ employees. It includes companies in the U.S. and Canada. Remote access available only to CSULB Students, Staff & Faculty. Use your Library Password for remote access.
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Use the Company Quick Search search option to get a very useful company snapshot. Remote access available only to CSULB Students, Staff & Faculty. Use your Library Password for remote access.
Links to major companies on the Web, top business news, information on initial public offerings, though they charge a fee for the company directory series (some of which the Library subscribes to in print). Hoover's has a U.K. product http://www.hoovers.co.uk/
A database of filings that can be searched by company name or ticker. Filings can also be browsed by various criteria including name of underwriter and state where the company is headquartered.
An international business database containing more than 1.8 million industrial and commercial companies worldwide, including product details and brand names.
Click on Business to search for detailed financial data about companies or to perform company comparisons. Can get information on public AND private companies (though mostly it will be directory type information). Remote access available only to CSULB Students, Staff & Faculty. Use your Library Password for remote access.
Search for public company information by company name or by ticker symbol. The Advanced Search offers the opportunity to do screening of companies for certain criteria. Please SIGN OUT when you are finished searching! Remote access available only to CSULB Students, Staff & Faculty. Use your Library Password for remote access.
"National Information Center (NIC) provides comprehensive information on banks and other institutions for which the Federal Reserve has a supervisory, regulatory, or research interest including both domestic and foreign banking organizations operating in the U.S. This page is provided to you by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System." Includes lists of largest banks & bank holding companies, foreign branches of U.S. banks, bank performance reports, etc.
SEDAR (System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval) is the Canadian equivalent of EDGAR. You can get public securities filings.
You can search the directory of 160,000 companies in 63,000 product and service categories. Also available in print in the Library Reference colleciton at REF T 12 .T612.
Allows searching with SIC or NAICS codes.
Rankings of Companies
Note: No longer available, except by subscription, via Fortune's web site. Still published in the magazine each year.
Printed company directories
The printed business directories are a useful supplement to the multitude of web resources. Reminder--it may be very difficult to find much information on companies which are not publicly traded.
Lexis Nexis Corporate Affiliations Ref HG 4057 A219 Dun's Regional Business Directories Los Angeles County Ref HF 5065 C2 D855 Dun's Regional Business Directories Los Angeles Suburban area Ref HF 5065 C2 D857 Directory of American Firms Operating in Foreign Countries Ref HG 4538 A1 D5 Directory of Foreign Firms Operating in the United States Ref HG 4057 D5Is the Company Still in Business?
Searched everywhere and still can find NOTHING on your company? Perhaps it is no longer in business....
Verify that the name is not a trade name or trademark
Directory of Obsolete Securities REF HG 4961 .D56 Consult older editions of national or regional business directories such as (Dun's) Million Dollar Directory (HF 5035 .D81) or Directory of Corporate Affiliations (HG 4057 .A219).
Corporate Histories
Historical company data is not often found on the web, nor are company "histories". If you need older company annual reports or 10Ks, please use our microfiche collections. You will occasionally find a corporate history on the company's web site, but there are other approaches to finding a history of a company. If you are looking for rankings of companies (Forbes 100, the "best" companies to work for, etc.), you can find these on the web.
Site offers historical information on successful companies, including a monthly listing of featured companies for which a short description and history are provided. The site also provides links to a variety of business history museums, business historians, universities, and organizations, as well as general business and history links.
5th edition of the Directory of Corporate Archives in the US and Canada sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, Business Archives, Section. Browse alphabetically by name of corporation, with geographical and archivists' indexes. Includes contact information, conditions of access, holdings and a description.
HD 2721 .D36
This 33 volume set (in the stacks, but non-circulating) can be particularly useful...if your company is included...but they don't have EVERYTHING.
Try a subject search in COAST to identify book length histories, (e.g. do a subject search for Ben & Jerry's to find books such as Ben & Jerry's, the Inside Scoop). This is most useful for large, well-known, consumer product companies. It is generally not terribly productive to look for company histories through articles, though if you are desperate, give it a try.
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