Company Research Resources
Company Profiles in Subscription Databases Often Contain the Following:
- Revenues (either estimated for private companies or from filings)
- Top Executives & brief bios
- Lines of business –
aka Industries (either NAICS or SICs)
What it does ( makes, services or both)
- Designates if private or public (subsidiary, branch, parent)
- Competitors (either designated by company or within SIC)
- Option: financials and background/history
- Some may have investment analysis
- Ability to compile lists within an industry, geography, sales range, or stock index
Company Information Research Flow Chart
Visual depiction of a BIS Librarian's suggested search strategy for finding company information using the Three Easy Steps to Find Company Information.
For resources under each step, visit the Three Easy Steps to Find Company Information.
Company & Industry How-to Search YT Playlist
BIS has created a series of YT clips on how to find information on companies using some of the databases mentioned in this guide. They are designed to get you started in determining if the company is public, private, subsidiary, plus ways to compile list of companies within industries. The Industry YT's are how to search for basic industry reports.
Click HERE to go to the BIS Playlist on YT. The clips are very short and will aid you in navigating through these complex databases. Remember that a lot of these reports are not found for free on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
Nexis Uni
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowProvides full text and summaries of articles from over 40,000 newspapers, magazines, journals, wire services, trade journals, etc., in addition to allowing you to generate lists of companies using criteria that you select.
Articles are available for download, email, print or can be sent directly to Google Docs in a variety of formats including pdf, docx and xlsx.
In order to download articles, make sure to enable pop-ups for advance.lexis.com
To search for company profiles, select the company info box on the home page and select Company Profile from the drop-down to search for a company by name.
PrivCo
- PrivCo This link opens in a new window"Business and financial data on major, non-publicly traded corporations, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies." Contains data on over 650,000 U.S. private companies, over 100,000 private market deals and venture captial fundings, and over 18,000 private market market investors. May search by keyword as well as by industry.
Access is free for University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign users, but you must create an account. Sign up with your university e-mail address from the main page. Once inside, search by company or investor name.
- User GuideFor more information about PrivCo, click on the PDF icon
Users can search by Company name or keyword in the top search bar.
Under advanced search options, found by clicking on the magnifying glass icon on the left hand side, you can search by term, geography, keyword, revenue, ownership, and more.
