Finding Business Information

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Finding Business Information

• Brendan Rapple AD700
• Advancing Studies 9/29/04

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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
  

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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?

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• 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?

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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.

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Searching for Company Information
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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 companys products.
• Maybe youre suing a company!
• For this classs assignment.

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• A vast amount of info. available in print and
  electronically
• Still, no one definitive way to conduct business
  research on a particular company

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Company Research

• Very important to know the following
• Proper and full company name
• Corporate headquarters' address
• Company's form of ownership

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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.

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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. 

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

• Different reference sources often focus on
• National
• Regional
• International
• Multinational companies

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

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Companies Located in the U.S.

• Yahoo! Business and Economy Companies
  Directories Regional U.S. States
• http//dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Directo
  ries/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.

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Locally-Owned Companies

• The Boston Globe database (full-text from 1980)
• Lexis-Nexis Academic (full-text of 100s of
  newspapers).

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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.

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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.

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Public Companies

• Type of Info. Disclosed
• Broad Financial data, e.g.
• revenues
• expenses
• profits
• summary of assets and liabilities

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

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Finding Financial Information about a Company

• Important to distinguish between
• Annual Report to Stockholders (ARS)
• Financial reports submitted to SEC

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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

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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

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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!!

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Databases Useful for Locating Financial Info
about a Company

• DB Million Dollar Database
• This database contains information on over 1.6
  million public and private companies in the
  United States and Canada.

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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).

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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 childs 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.

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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.

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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.

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Useful Databases for Researching Public Companies

• Subscribed Databases (cont.)
• Lexis-Nexis Academic
• Extensive full-text database of legal and
  business information including newspapers.

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Useful Websites for Researching Public Companies

• Free Web Sites
• Hoovers http//www.hoovers.com/
• Although much of the in-depth Company Profile
  information in Hoovers is fee-based, company
  contact information is readily available for
  about 10,000 companies. Most of these are
  publicly listed US companies.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Researching a Particular Type or Sector of
Business

• Reuters Business Insight
• This 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.