Q. How do I find information about a company?

For a full list of resources and more company research tips, see the Company Research Guide. 

The first questions to ask when doing company research:

• Is if the company is publicly-traded or privately owned?
• Is it a subsidiary of another company?
• Is it a US company or international?

These questions can be quickly answered by searching in Corporate Affiliations. Under Advanced Search you can search by Product/Brand and quickly find out if a company is a subsidiary or a parent company, if it is privately owned, and if it is a US company or not. On a side note: there will be more information available on public companies than private companies. 

Other resources can tell you other things about a company:

Mergent Online: Current and historical financial information, as well as list of competitors, recent news, information on executives, and more. Mergent covers both US and International public and private companies. 

Mergent Intellect: Mergent Intellect allows you to search for public and private companies based on name, location, industry, etc. Mergent Intellect is the best source for private companies as well as small and local companies. Includes Canadian companies. 

Business Source Complete: Search Business Source Complete for articles about a company as well as company reports on US and international public and private companies. 

Value Line Investment Survey: Value Line Investment Survey is an investment report database covering 1,700 US publicly-traded companies. You can search for companies by name or company. More info on Value Line.

Lexis-Nexis Academic: Provides analysis, trade journal articles, news, company reports, and more on by US and international public and private companies. From the link above, search under "Get Company Info."

IBISWorld: IBISWorld is an industry database. When you search by company name you can often find industry reports related to you company. This will provide you information on the industry the company operates in as well as a list of competitors.