Research Guides: LDR 301: Problems in Leadership: Discover Company and Industry Resources

Researching Publicly-traded Companies

Publicly-traded companies are relatively easy to research because they release financial and operational reports to the public on a regular basis, as required by the SEC. The databases in this section focus on information about public companies.

Search by your company's name or its stock ticker symbol.

Mergent Intellect
Companies (private and public), industries, and key business ratios.
MergentOnline
Extensive company information, including profiles of 10,500 companies traded on US stock exchanges, 17,000 non-US companies, fifteen years of financial statements, corporate annual reports and comprehensive market reports on over 100 countries. In addition to the as reported financials Mergent Online includes segment results, restated financials, preliminary results and historical ratios.

Marketline Company Reports
Current reports including key facts, history, competitors, SWOT analysis, locations. (From Business Source Premier)

Thomas Register of American Manufactures
Search products and the companies that manufacture the products.

International Directory of Company Histories
Detailed historical informaton on thousands of leading companies, including information on brands, marketing and advertising strategies.

Researching Privately-held Companies

Private companies are often difficult to research because they are not legally required to release information about their finances or operations since they do not have stockholders. These are the best library databases for private company research. Several track only private companies. If you cannot find what you're looking for, try searching for the company name in one of the business article databases in the next box.

Mergent Intellect
Companies (private and public), industries, and key business ratios.
PrivCo
PrivCo specializes in business and financial research on non-publicly traded corporations, including family-owned, private equity-owned, venture-backed, and international unlisted companies. Includes profiles for over 850,000 firms, 20,000 investors and 100,000 private market deals, with more information and analysis added daily. Recommended for company, investor, M&A, venture capital funding, and private equity research.

Crunchbase
Crunchbase is a freemium service providing research and analysis on startup activity, funding, and investment. Information availability varies by company but this is a good place to find what's going on in the startup world.