Ask Us

There are several ways to find information on a company, but what information is available on a company and where you should look will vary depending on whether the company is a public company, a subsidiary, or a private company. Usually, you can use Wikipedia to determine what kind of company you are researching. For example, you will see Subsidiary next to "Company Type" in the box on the top right when you look at the wikipedia entry for Vans. In this case, you will also want to look at the filings and annual reports of the parent company, VF Corporation, and you will see the "Parent" company also listed in box on the top right. For more information on what this means, look here.

For information on Public Companies - Use Mergent Market Atlas

• The easiest way to search for a public company is by Ticker symbol, the alphanumeric symbol that is used to buy/sell shares on stock exchanges, and this can be easily found in Wikipedia or Yahoo! Finance. For example, Apple's Ticker is AAPL.
• From the options across the top, you can search look at financials, filings, news, reports, and more.
• The annual report, or 10-K, has a ton of information on public company's performance and strategy. The section that has the most information on strategy is the "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations." You can find these by looking for 10-Ks in the filings or by clicking Reports on the top and clicking "Annual Reports" from the options on the left within the Reports tab.

Finding Additional Information on Public Companies - Investor Relation Pages and Shareholder Meetings

• Public companies also publish information about their performance on their "Investor Relations" pages which can be found by googling the name of the company and investor relations.
• The shareholder meeting minutes, also called earnings calls, also contain a lot of information about strategy, performance, market conditions, new products/services and more. Searching the name of company and "earnings call" (for example: ibm AND "earnings call") within Fair Disclosure Wire in Nexis Uni will produce these transcripts.

Finding Information on Venture Backed Companies (Companies with Investment from Private Equity/Venture Capital) - Use PrivCO

• In order to use PrivCO, you are required to create a free account to access PrivCo. To sign up for an account, click on "Create an academic account" and follow the instructions. Once you have created an account, put in your email and password and click "Sign in."
• Use the search bar on the top left to search for the company by name.
• NOTE: There is usually much less information and inconsistent availability of information on private companies.

Finding Information on Private Companies and Subsidiaries - Use Nexis Uni's Company Dossier

• Within Nexis Uni, click the box that says "Find a Company" to search for the company by name.
• NOTE: There is usually much less information and inconsistent availability of information on private companies, and there is limited information at the subsidiary level in terms of sales and revenues.

Finding Information on Smaller Private Companies - Use Data Axle's Reference Solutions (Requires a San Diego Public Library Card)

• Log into Reference Solutions from SDPL's website through the link under the eLibrary under Business & Careers
• Within the U.S. Businesses database, type the name of the company into the "company name" field in the quick search.
• NOTE: Some product names differ from the company's official name, and checking the trademark/copyright marks on the company's website can help determine what to search.

Finding News and Press Information on a Company - Use the Library's Business Article Databases

• To build an advanced search to find information on a company and ttopics such as R&D, new products, etc., use the strategies outlined here. Also, check here for some example searches.
• To find additional trade journals or industry publications, use the SDSU Generative A.I. tools to do a search like this: "what are the best trade or industry publications or news sources for the fashion industry. Only give me results with current websites and the website links." From here, search for news on your company on these sites by keyword.
• NOTE: There are different kinds of information in different kinds of publications, and this page explains what you may find in different publication types.
• NOTE: For local companies, try to look for local business publications, like the San Diego Business Journal, in the Library's Journal Search or look through databases that cover local news like California Newspapers (NewsBank).