Public Company Research

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Public Company Research

• Presented by
• Hawaii Pacific University

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Directory Information How to find basic contact
information and lists of executives

• Books
• Hoovers Handbook of American Business Located
  on 2nd floor of Meader Library. Call Number is
  CIC HG4057 .A28617
• Dun Bradstreets Million Dollar Directory
  Located on 2nd floor of Meader Library.
  Call number is CIC HC102 .D8

• Online Databases Simply search for your
  companys name in these databases
• Hoovers Online
• Mergent Online

Click here for a reminder of how to access the
databases HPU subscribes to
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Company History Research

• International Directory of Company Histories
  Located on 2nd floor of Meader Library. Call
  Number is CIC HD2721 .I63
• Hoovers Handbook of American Business Located on
  2nd floor of Meader Library. Call Number is
  CIC HG4057 .A28617

ALSO

• Search the Library Catalog for books about the
  company or for biographies of company leaders
• Search e-book collections for books (available
  through the Databases page)

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Financial Information
All Public companies that trade on stock
exchanges within the United States are required
to file their financial information annually with
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In addition, most also create glossy annual
reports for shareholders and prospective
investors. Glossy annual reports can be useful,
but must be used carefully because they are part
of companies public relations activities and so
the company will be portrayed in the best light
possible.
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Financial Information
To find glossy annual reports, find your company
in Mergent Online and click on the tab labeled
Annual Reports. Mergent includes annual
reports back to 1995 for many of the companies in
the database. Many companies also provide annual
reports on their websites, usually under a
section titled About the Company or Investors
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Financial Information
Finding SEC Filings The SEC makes all recent
company filings available through a database
known as EDGAR. All filings are available as
soon as the company submits them, so this is the
place to go for the most recent information.
Here is the web address for EDGAR http//www.sec
.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html
The next slide will explain how to search EDGAR
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Financial Information
Here is what the search screen looks like. Type
the name of the company in the correct box. If
you know the stock symbol that the company trades
under, you can search using the Ticker Symbol
box. This is easier than searching by company
name, but not necessary.
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Financial Information

• When you find your company, EDGAR will show you
  ALL of the forms filed by the company
• To narrow down the number of results you get, you
  will need to know the code for the form you are
  looking for
• 10-K is the code for the annual filings. You
  should also see if there are any 10-K/A forms
  (for amendments to the 10-K)
• 10-Q (and 10-Q/A for amendments) is the code for
  quarterly reports. 10-Q is filed every 3 months,
  so the data is usually more up-to-date, but this
  data is subject to revision in the annual 10-K
  report

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Financial Information
The top right corner of the screen contains the
search boxes seen below. This is where you can
narrow the search by form type and date. It is
not case sensitive, but you do need to include
the hyphen or slash.
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Financial Information
Here is what the final results list looks like
(the date is not shown here, but is does appear
in EDGAR)
There are two formats you can look at Text and
HTML. If you choose HMTL, you will be brought to
the table of contents for the form and will have
to click on another link labeled 10-K. So the
HTML version involves an extra step, but within
the report itself, there are more links that make
it easier to navigate.
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Journal and Magazine Articles
There are 2 Major Databases that include journal
and magazine articles about companies. These are
useful for when you need in-depth information
about a specific part of a companys operations.
1) Business Source Premier
2) Emerald Fulltext
Click here for an explanation of the difference
between magazines and journals
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Business Source Premier Sample
This search will find information about promotion
of Kodak products (whether it is described as
advertising or marketing)
Note If you search for advertising AND
marketing, you will actually lose a lot of
relevant results, because the database will only
show you articles where both words appear. Using
OR will bring up articles where only one word is
used, as well as articles where both words are
used.
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Emerald Fulltext Sample
The same search can be run in Emerald, but the
focus of the results will be focused on
management aspects of the topic.
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Tips for Searching
When searching a periodical database, it is easy
to get frustrated if you cant find what you are
looking for right away. So be flexible. Try some
of these tips to help you get a good list of
articles

• Use OR to search for synonyms of your search
  terms (as in advertising OR marketing)
• Look for controlled vocabulary in a database.
  Usually these are called Subject terms. When
  you find a relevant article, always look at the
  subject terms listed to get more clues about
  possible words to search for.

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Tips for Searching

• Search for Subject Terms instead of using the
  default search setting. In a database, there is
  usually a pull-down menu that allows you to
  change where the database will look for your
  search terms. Change it to Subject, and you
  will get much more focused results. Only do
  this if you have seen the term used as a subject
  heading.
• Contact the reference librarians at (808)
  544-1133 or reference_at_hpu.edu. We are your
  resident experts on database searching, and are
  here to help you whenever you get stuck.

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The EndPublic Company Research

• If you still need help, please contact a
  librarian
• [phone]
• reference_at_hpu.edu

• To go to other Company Research Tutorials, click
  on the links below
• Introduction to Company Research
• Private and Subsidiary Company Research
• International Company Research