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FIN 455: Equity Analysis & Valuation: Company Research

Professor Jenny Simmers

Company Research

This page provides tips on finding information about specific companies. When conducting a market analysis or prospecting for sales leads, it's important to learn about a company's structure, the identities of its executives and its financial performance, as well as trends and issues affecting the company. Finally, is the company public or private, and how does that influence your analysis? 

  • Public Companies - These companies are publicly traded through the free trade of stocks on various stock exchanges. Public companies generally have more information available due to their requirements for reporting to entities such as the SEC.
  • Private Companies - These companies generally have less information available as they are not held to the same reporting standards as public companies. Private companies can be small or large. When researching a private company, it may be helpful to look at public companies within the same industry.

Sources and Instructions for Company Research

Mergent Intellect can be used to find financial information, executive details and corporate structure.

Mergent Intellect Help Guides Use the instructions found in these guides to get the most out of this search engine. 

 

Click image to enlarge.


EBSCO's Business Source Elite includes MarketLine company profile reports, in addition to business-related articles from scholarly and trade publication journals.


Step 1: Search for a company: 


 

Step 2: Limit your results by Source Types and Date. Choose Company Profiles and Past 12 months:

Public Vs. Private Company Research

Public Companies: Trade on stock exchanges and issue stocks. 
Private Companies: Do not trade on stock exchanges.

Determining Public Vs. Private Companies...

  • Look up the company in Yahoo! Finance. Look for a ticker symbol and check the News & Performance of the company you are researching.
  • Look up the company in the Forbes-Yearly Lists using the following lists: America's Largest Private Companies and America's Largest Private Companies. 
  • Look up the company in the Inc. 5000 Company List. This resource provides a list of 5,000 private companies compiled by Inc. magazine (published yearly).
  • Look up the company in the Private Companies Worldwide listing by Bloomberg Businessweek. This listing is searchable by region or alphabetical by name.

Company Research

Questions To Ask When Researching a Company:

  • Competitive Analysis: Who are the major competitors to your company? What products and/or services are represented by your competition? What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) for your company and its competition? 
  • Products and Services: What products and services are a part of your company and its competition?
    **Use the company's website. Products are often listed.
    **Do a Google search for the company's annual report in order to locate products and services. Example Search: [company name] annual report 2023 

S.E.C. Company Analysis
Securities & Exchange Commission documents can also help with your company analysis.

  • EDGAR Database (Securities and Exchange Commission): 1) Search for your company by name or ticker symbol. 2) Click the CIK number associated with your company to view a listing of company filings. 3) Review the following forms: 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K paying close attention to the Management Discussion and Analysis sections.