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3. Getting
a basic overview of the company
First of all, get
the phone number of your target company: from directory enquiries if
you know where it's based (London's always a good guess) or from a business
directory, or the company's website. It's also worth checking whether
the company you're researching is a subsidiary of a larger company or
part of a larger commercial group. In many cases information will only
be available via listings for, and resources on, the parent company.
The best way to check this is using the directory Who Owns Whom (see
Business Directories).
The Annual Report
If you're researching a plc, that usually (not quite always) means the
company's listed on the Stock Exchange - in other words you could buy
shares in it if you wanted to. In that case, it is obliged to produce
an annual report for investors and potential investors (i.e. you!).
Some companies which you can't buy shares in also produce annual reports,
especially publicly-owned companies. An annual report is basically a
glossy report on all the company's activities over the previous year.
It typically includes the company's accounts, a list of its directors,
political and charitable donations etc. It will probably tell you where
the company's major projects and facilities are and what they do, what
its biggest brands are, and give you some idea of its culture. It will
often tell you how much the directors get paid, and how many employees
there are etc. A one-sided view of course, but a useful start, and often
an easy way of answering some questions about the company. So phone
up the head office and ask them to send you copies of the company's
latest annual report and interim report. They will do this for free.
Alternatively, the
Financial Times runs an annual reports service, where you tick which
companies you want and they send them to you for free (it covers many,
though not all, large British companies) - call 0208 770 0770 for an
order form, or go to www.icbinc.com/cgi-bin/ft.pl on the web. You might
also find back issues of annual reports in a library, especially a business
library.
The company's
website
The company's website will generally give you much of the information
found in the annual report, and often more. Generally the larger and
more publicly visible companies tend to have more sophisticated websites.
For example, it is often possible to download annual reports and other
company documents from their websites. You should be able to find a
company's web address using an intelligent search engine such as Google.
Industry sources
Obviously
companies' own sites are often extremely useful, however they do give
you a rather biased view of the company's activities. If you want a
more concise or impartial overview of a companies activities there are
a range of business directories and websites you can look at (See business
directories/websites). There are also broader industry sites which give
plenty of information on an industry sector. One of the best is the
Institute of Petroleum's site, at www.petroleum.co.uk , which has a
detailed archive industry news section, links to companies and to various
information pages, and plenty more.
SEC records
For companies registered in the US, the reports filed with the SEC provide
an extremely useful source of information (see Using company registrars).
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