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SUST 4100 - Resilience to Catastrophic Failure in Organizations: Public Company Research

Company Research

Finding Public Company Information

Public companies are traded on stock exchanges or over-the-counter and are subject to regulation by securities commissions/authorities. They are required by law to report publicly and much information on public companies is available through our databases. Look for useful information in mission statements, company reports, profiles, investor relations reports, analyst commentary, and more. SWOT analyses and ESG reports can be an especially helpful source of information. Make sure you also check news sources for other articles that may be relevant to your work!

 

 

Recommended databases for public company research

  • Mergent Online
    Provides corporate and financial data for publicly traded companies worldwide including detailed business descriptions, competitors, corporate histories, annual reports, up to 15 years of financial statements, information on subsidiaries, ownership and more. Also supports searching and downloading of SEC government filings (U.S. companies) and SEDAR filings (Canadian companies).
  • Mergent Intellect
    Intellect covers millions of publicly-traded and private companies around the globe. Company records are sourced from a combination of the Hoovers and Dun and Bradstreet Million Dollar Directories. Other business information includes executive contacts, and a global corporate family tree feature, industry news. Intellect also offers access to Key Business Ratios (KBR) for competitive benchmarking data.
  • Hoovers
    A database containing information on public and private enterprises worldwide. Public company information typically includes business description, industry information, financials and stock information, news, competitors list, key people and contacts. The Build a List function is very useful for creating competitors lists by location, industry, annual sales, number of employees and much more.
  • Investext via Mergent Online
    Investext provides access to analyst reports for publicly-traded companies. The reports are produced by analysts from investment banks, brokerage houses, and consulting firms. Reports include analyses on company and industry financial performance, SWOTs, M&A, trends, challenges, and much more. Investext includes current and historical analyst reports. Quick search tips: (1) Search for a publicly-traded company’s most recent analyst reports using the Company Search field > On report landing page, click Reports tab > click Broker Research reports link; (2) To conduct more advanced searches such as historical reports, initiating coverage reports, or reports from specific investment banks, click on the Investext tab (far right-hand side tab) to go to the advanced search form.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Reports

  • Investext via Mergent Online
    Investext provides access to analyst reports for publicly-traded companies. The reports are produced by analysts from investment banks, brokerage houses, and consulting firms. Reports include analyses on company and industry financial performance, SWOTs, M&A, trends, challenges, and much more. Investext includes current and historical analyst reports.

    Quick search tips:
    (1) Search for a publicly-traded company’s most recent analyst reports using the Company Search field > On report landing page, click Reports tab > click Broker Research reports link;
    (2) To conduct more advanced searches such as historical reports, initiating coverage reports, or reports from specific investment banks, click on the Investext tab (far right-hand side tab) to go to the advanced search form.
  • Marketline Advantage
    Marketline Advantage covers SWOT company profiles for over 2,500 public and private enterprises worldwide. Type company name > Select "Companies" from drop-down menu > Click Search > Click on company profile in results list > Click on SWOT Analysis under Table of Contents on right panel. Click "Apply" and select the Search button.
  • Nexis Uni
    Select All Nexis Uni dropdown to the left of the main search box. Select the Company and Financial check box. In the main search box input Company(name of company) and publication (swot).
  • Passport
    Contains Global Company Profiles for several hundred of the world's largest companies.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Reports

  • Sustainalytics
    This database rates companies on ESG performance while also including commentary and qualitative analysis of company performance, e.g. policies and programs in effect and controversy reports for for each company. ESG Risk Ratings universe covers around 13000 public and private companies. Controversies Research monitor 700,000 news items from more than 60,000 media and NGO sources on a daily basis, in order to identify potential incidents for a universe of ~13000 issuers.