Researching a company
Posted by mightylibrarian on February 25, 2008
In the last few weeks I have taught a couple classes about the tools are useful in researching a company. Of course students want to know which is the best site or source. The only thing I can say, you cannot rely on one source, one resource. You need to gather information from many sources to get an overall view. I found out that Tim Horton’s, the Canadian institution, was bought by Wendy’s in 1995 and became a separately traded company in 2006. If you are ever in Canada stop at a Tim Horton’s for good fast food meal. If there are other fast food joints nearby, Horton’s will be the only one with a line.
Proprietary databases to start researching a company:
- Business Source Complete - company profiles (Datamonitor Reports) and articles about a company and its industry.
- Factiva - similar to Business Source Complete, but also included are key financial data and stock price comparison
- Lexis-Nexis Academic - company profiles, Hoover’s Reports, and news from around the globe. The new Company Profile is probably the best feature of the new LN Academic interface.
Free places to find quality information:
- Corporate Sites - Annual Report (if public) and other government required documents. Watch out for the public relations info on these sites.
- Blogs - These may be useful in getting an inside view of a company, but take the information with a grain of salt.
- Sec.gov - find any government required file here
- NYTimes.com Markets
- Yahoo Finance
- Google Finance
