Research Guides: *Getting Started with Business Research: Company Info

Company Research Guide

Company research is complicated and only a sample of resources and research techniques are highlighted here. For additional tips, see the more detailed guide linked below.

Company Research
by Judy Geczi Last Updated Jan 5, 2023 527 views this year

Company Histories

While a company's own website will often include information about its history, you must evaluate whether the information is objective or biased. Consider using these additional sources for historical background on a company.

Business Insights: Global This link opens in a new window
1. Search for a company by company name or ticker symbol.
2. Click on your desired company.
3. Choose Company Histories or Company Chronology on the left side of the page.
MERGENT Online This link opens in a new window
Select 'History' under the Company Details tab

Business Rankings

Fortune 500
Fortune magazine conducts an annual ranking of America's largest corporations. Includes lists by industry, state & CEO.

Domestic Company Directories

Sorkins Directory of Business and Government This link opens in a new window
Provides company directory and business profile information including email addresses for companies in the St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago Metropolitan Areas including the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois.
Available in Pius Library & the Business School only.…more.

Company Profiles & Financial Statements

Each of the following subscription (SLU-only) resources can be used to find company profiles and/or financial information. Company profiles may include such information as corporate history, executive leadership, financial performance, market share, and more.

Mergent Online
Includes detailed financial information, including financial ratios.

Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista is a statistics portal that integrates data on media, business, politics, education, technology and a wide variety of other areas of interest or markets on over 80,000 topics from 18,000 sources...more.
Business Insights: Global This link opens in a new window
Provides company and industry intelligence on thousands of global companies. It includes periodical articles, news articles, and press releases; investment reports; corporate chronologies and company histories; brands and product information; industry and company rankings; financial overviews; industry overviews and case studies...more.
Standard & Poors Global Market Intelligence This link opens in a new window
Access Standard & Poors publications and resources such as Stock Reports, Market Snapshots, and the Daily Stock Price Record for NASDAQ, American, and New York stock exchanges....more.
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
Provides business and financial research on non-publicly traded (private) corporations in the US and internationally...more.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Choose "Business" on the bottom left, then choose "Company Dossier". You can navigate the tabs on the left, or choose "Generate Report" to download.
To find financial reports, on the left choose "Company Reports" or "SEC Filings".

Business Source Premier
Use the Document Type filter to choose Company Report to limit to company profiles. Also good for finding articles from the business press that mention a company.
EDGAR
EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Locate 10-K, 10-Q, and other required SEC filings

How to Read a Financial Report by Merrill Lynch
A valuable resource to help readers learn how to read and analyze a company's annual report, particularly financial statements.

Market Share

Business Insights: Global This link opens in a new window
1. Go to the Company Search, enter your company's name, then click on your company in the list of company names presented.
2. Click on the MARKET SHARE REPORTS on the left hand side of your company's page.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
1. Search for an industry report by keyword (such as the company or industry) or NAICS code.
2. Open the industry report.
3. Choose the Major Companies tab.

Benchmarking

One way to assess a particular company's financial health is to compare its financial statement and ratios to an aggregate norm for the industry in which it operates.

BizMiner
Bizminer offers industry financial analysis benchmarks for over 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. The market analysis reports are available at the national and local levels down to the zip code.
RMA eStatement Studies
The online version of the RMA Annual Statement Studies includes financial ratio benchmarks, as well as industry default probabilities and cash flow measures. Statistics are derived from data submitted by bank members of the Risk Management Association. The data comes from more than 260,000 statements of public and private companies, but the vast majority are from small to medium sized non-public companies. Covers over 700 industries arranged by NAICS and usually also by assets/sales size. Some data is presented in medians/quartiles. There are subsets of data by U.S. region and four years of data from past editions. Detailed explanations of the ratios can be found under the tab About eStatement Studies