LibGuides: ESL 522/525 Graduate Student Guide: Company Information

Finding Company Information

The library provides many databases that contain information on companies all over the world. For help determining where to start looking for company information, take a look at this page with a Company Research Flow Chart created by the STEM Entrepreneurship & Business Library.

For even more detailed information on finding company information, check out the The iMBA's Guide to Digital Business Research.

Finding Information About Private Companies

To find information about privately owned companies, try starting with one of these databases.

Hoover's Academic Pro This link opens in a new window
If you get an error message when trying to connect to Hoover's off campus, please try an incognito window. Delivers company, executive officer, and industry information in a searchable database. Includes parent, subsidiary, branch and competitor information.
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
Database of financial data on major privately-held companies. Includes private financials and revenues; private M&A deals and deal multiples, private firm valuations, VC funding, private equity deal history; and private and family ownership data.
Note that all users must create an account using their University of Illinois email address to access this database.
Business Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Provides bibliographic and full text content, including indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 and full text journal articles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. The database full text content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more.
Alternate Access Link
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. Includes current news, business information, company directories, federal and state laws, regulations, legal cases, and more.

Finding Information About Public Companies

To find information about publicly owned companies, try starting with one of these databases.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
U.S. company data: An Internet-accessible subscription service covering 10,000 public companies and their SEC filings; U.S. Annual Reports: Easy-to-access current and historical annual reports on 10,000 U.S. public companies, all in PDF image format that provides faster download and allows viewing the document; International company data: More companies from more countries than any other international database, with global searching across databases; International Annual Reports: Hard-to-get, timely annual reports on all companies in our International Company Data database, available in PDF image formats; Corporate Visibility: Expanded, in-depth, and detailed descriptions of public companies as they appear in the Mergent Manuals (fka Moody's Manuals), which were first published in 1918.
Hoover's Academic Pro This link opens in a new window
If you get an error message when trying to connect to Hoover's off campus, please try an incognito window. Delivers company, executive officer, and industry information in a searchable database. Includes parent, subsidiary, branch and competitor information.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. Includes current news, business information, company directories, federal and state laws, regulations, legal cases, and more.
Business Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Provides bibliographic and full text content, including indexing and abstracts for scholarly business journals back as far as 1886 and full text journal articles in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. The database full text content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more.
Alternate Access Link