{"id":15906,"date":"2024-02-21T15:11:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T23:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/?p=15906"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:15:18","slug":"companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Company Info"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-background wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"background-color:#f0f7fd\">Research hint:  Start by determining whether the company you want to research is public, private or non-profit. This will help you determine quickly where to turn to for information<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many corporations today have public websites that contain a lot of pertinent information about the company and it can be worthwhile to locate this important source of information when conducting research on any company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Public Companies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An important document produced by public corporations is the <strong>Annual Corporate Report<\/strong>. This documents describes the corporations operations and fiscal conditions over the past year.  The Annual Corporate Report is a reporting requirement that was put in place after the stock market crash of 1929.  You can find them by searching sites such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"bullet wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.annualreports.com\/\">AnnualReports.com<\/a> Boasts of having the most complete and up-to-date listings of annual reports on the internet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile has-background\" style=\"background-color:#eefff5;grid-template-columns:19% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"484\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-content\/uploads\/484px-Seal_of_Washington.svg_.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15895 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-content\/uploads\/484px-Seal_of_Washington.svg_.png 484w, https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-content\/uploads\/484px-Seal_of_Washington.svg_-300x298.png 300w, https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-content\/uploads\/484px-Seal_of_Washington.svg_-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 484px) 100vw, 484px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/content.lib.washington.edu\/reportsweb\/\">Northwest Historical Annual Reports Collection<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This site publishes Annual financial reports of companies currently or historically based in the Pacific Northwest. The collection includes annual reports dating from the 1930s and provides a continuous run of annual reports for most of the companies up to the 1990s.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Federal Government<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The federal government SEC<sup data-fn=\"4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520\" id=\"4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520-link\">1<\/a><\/sup> also provides copies of &#8220;10-K&#8221; forms (which provides more detail than the Annual Corporate Report) through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/edgar\/searchedgar\/companysearch\">EDGAR database<\/a>. 10-K forms can contain information such as the company history, organizational structure, financial statements, earnings per share, subsidiaries, executive compensation and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are some tips on using EDGAR:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"bullet wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use the &#8216;Company and Person Lookup&#8217; search box.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On the returned listing of filings for the company, enter \u201c10-K\u201d in the <strong>Filing Type<\/strong> box near the top of the page to filter for only 10-K forms that have been filed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"mcetoc_1ehs8pgai3\">Privately Owned Companies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Are not required to make information about their financial condition public. Private companies usually do not produce annual reports which are available to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, where can you find some information about them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best search strategy is to look for articles in newspapers and journals, search business directories, consult trade associations, find local sources, and search the Internet for information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:39px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-footnotes\"><li id=\"4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520\">U.S. <strong>S<\/strong>ecurity and <strong>E<\/strong>xchange <strong>C<\/strong>ommision <a href=\"#4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research hint: Start by determining whether the company you want to research is public, private or non-profit. This will help you determine quickly where to turn to for information Many corporations today have public websites that contain a lot of pertinent information about the company and it can be worthwhile to locate this important source [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"business-sub-template","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"U.S. <strong>S<\/strong>ecurity and <strong>E<\/strong>xchange <strong>C<\/strong>ommision\",\"id\":\"4efa3b98-3bf1-4c3a-a1eb-71eddbc62520\"}]"},"categories":[348],"tags":[236,364],"class_list":["post-15906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-guides","tag-business","tag-wa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15906"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19322,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15906\/revisions\/19322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}