Roadmap for finding company information
Are you looking for an overview of the company?
Overviews will give you basic snapshot information such as company history, revenue analysis, executive leadership and potentially SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis data.
- Company websiteCompany websites are a good place to start as they often list useful information including historical data, press releases, corporate structure and financial information, typically listed under headings such as About Company, Newsroom, Leadership or Investors. Just be aware that the information will be slanted to favor the company in a positive way. The market research databases available through Rutgers libraries will give you analysis.
- MarketLineReports include company summary, financials, business segments, historical data, key executives, business description, news, SWOT analysis, and key competitors.
- Data Axle Reference Solutions (formerly Reference USA)Lists companies and competitors by industry, location, and size. Its directory includes over 14 million U.S. public and private companies. Displays of company listings include internal links to subsidiary and parent companies, where applicable, as well as lines of business, senior executives and their titles.
Is the company publicly or privately owned? If a company is public, there will be much more information available since it has to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and disclose its financials. Private companies are not required to file with the SEC, making it more difficult to locate even the most basic information.
How can I determine if a company is public or private?
Bloomberg Business Week has a list of public companies. You can search by company name at http://www.bloomberg.com/research/common/symbollookup/symbollookup.asp
In addition, if you go to Yahoo! Finance, http://finance.yahoo.com and find the ticker symbol for the company, then the company is a publicly held company. A private company does not sell stock to the general public, and the stock is not traded on an exchange.
Are there any news articles or journal articles that covers the company?
You can find articles about your company using the following databases. Try to be flexible in how you search, such as searching for a product name or other descriptive or company-specific data along with its name. For example, try searching the terms "wearables" or "smartwatches" when you want to find information about the company "Fitbit".
To find recent events that have to do with a company or an industry, you can search Google News: http://news.google.com. Click on the down arrow next to the search box to do "advanced news search".
- Business Source PremierContains articles from thousands of scholarly and professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines, as well as profiles of the world's 10,000 largest companies and over 2,000 industry sector reports.
- FactivaProvides access to thousands of major global newspapers, magazines, reports, and other publications, focusing on business, including the Wall Street Journal.
- Access World NewsFull-text content from over 2,200 North American newspapers and more than 1,200 international newspapers, plus 300 wire services and over 200 broadcast news transcripts. Newspapers can be searched by specific title, region, state, country, or continent if looking for regional information.
Are you looking for financial data about the public company? Researching a company's financial performance over a period of several years can give you a clear picture of its forecast outlook.
- IBISWorldIBISWorld provides industry reports categorized by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), highlighting trends, statistics and analysis on market size, market share of competitors, and industry growth rates. Performance analysis includes emerging industry trends as well as recent production performance and 5 year forecasts.
- MarketLineMarketLine provides original industry, company, market analysis, and country reports and data based on published research and primary and secondary data sources. This growing collection currently includes 3,500 industry profiles, market data on 150 consumer products in over 60 countries, 30,000 company profiles, 2,500 company SWOT analyses, summaries of 50,000 M&A and financial deals, 110 country profiles, and economic and demographic indicators for 215 countries.
- Mergent OnlineProvides up to 25 years of annual and quarterly financial data for public companies only. Has corporate histories including mergers and acquisitions, subsidiary and property holding lists, and links to SEC filings and annual reports. Includes links to recent news reports and reports on insider and institutional owners.
- Global Financial DataThe Global Financial Database is an international collection of historical and current financial and economic data. Covering more than 150 different countries, it provides over 30,000 different data series that are immediately downloadable from the website. Rutgers subscribes to the GFDatabase, but does not subscribe or have access to the US Stock Database, UK Stock Database, or the Real Estate Database.
What if I need to research a private company?
PrivCo lists company profiles and financial information. It also lists M & A activities for the company's industry and venture capitalists' activities related to the industry.
Use Company Investigator in Westlaw Campus Research to identify legal ultimate and immediate parent companies and view corporate family tree structures. Access it using the All Content tab in the Browse section of the home page. Search U.S. and international businesses by company name or use options to strengthen search accuracy, including location and industry codes. You can also access Hoover’s Company Profiles under Other Business Reports in the right column. Hoover’s Reports include company overview, historical data, officers and directors, key competitors, and industry description and codes for U.S. and international public and private companies.
This article from Online magazine contains a private company search checklist. And this page from the Library of Congress website contains helpful information on searching private companies, including how to access some free sources. This list from Inc. Magazine and PrivCo features America's 1,000 Largest and Most Inspiring Private Companies.
Media Alerts
Several Rutgers databases allow the ability to set up news/media alerts, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Access World News and EBSCO (which includes Business Source Premier and Regional Business News).
See the Media Alert Instruction Sheet below for details.
- Media AlertsGuide to setting up news/media alerts.
Historical Company Research
- Historical Company Research: DirectoriesBlog post from Business & Funding Librarian Leigh Clark of the NJ State Library detailing three types of directories that can be used to find historical information on New Jersey businesses.