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4.
How to find out about a company's…
Offices/sites
These are normally listed on the company's website. Alternatively,
for UK companies, you could try looking in the red postal address directories,
in your local library. Each one covers a region, so to get all the addresses
of a company you will have to look in about 10 of these. Or better,
you can now get all of the UK phone books on a CD-ROM. These are not
outrageously expensive and will also be in some libraries.
Directors
The annual report or interim report will tell you who the directors
are at the time of publication (as will probably the company website)
- changes since then will be in the FT (although not always in the online
version) or the trade press. The reports will also tell you how much
they get paid (they call it remuneration - be aware that packages include
share options and other benefits such as company car, medical insurance
etc), and for each it will give a one-paragraph biography. For directors
of non-plcs (including subsidiaries of plcs), use the Directory of Directors.
There are versions
of Who's Who for particular industries - look in a decent business library.
These books will give a short biography - where born, parents, where
educated, career, family status, club/society membership, leisure activities
etc. The highest-profile directors of large companies may have full-length
(i.e. book) biographies written of them.
Try searching library catalogues. You can also find salaries, company
shareholdings and short biographies in the 'profile' section of the
Yahoo Finance website (http://finance.yahoo.com/).
Further information on directors may be obtained from the trade press
- for example in interviews (see Trade
journals).
For home addresses
of directors of UK companies go to Companies House (see Government
sources). Bear in mind that some directors give their work addresses
(although they're not supposed to - you could try complaining). Where
this happens, see whether they are also listed as directors of another
(less controversial?) company, where they might have given their home
address. In a person-based (rather than company-based) search, if addresses
are different, the director will probably be listed twice, as different
people. Another way of getting the home address out is to do a full
search on the company, and look at an earlier record of directors, before
they got too paranoid to give their home address. If they have an unusual
name, you could try looking in the phone book CD-ROM. Standard and Poors
Register of Corporations - Vol. 2 also lists home and email addresses
of directors where obtainable.
For US companies the quickest way to find out information on directors
is to find the DEF form on the SEC's EDGAR database at www.freeedgar.com
(see Using company registrars).
This supplies the name, age and background of directors as well as other
company affiliations.
Shareholders
The largest shareholders (holding more than 3% of the company)
are listed in the company's annual report, and in FT / MacMillan's
/ HemScott directories (see Business
Directories). Yahoo Finance is the best free source
on the web (http://finance.yahoo.com/l).
This lists the 20 or so biggest institutional shareholders, the biggest
mutual fund shareholders and the holdings of the company's directors.
They can also be found via Hemscott's website (www.hemscott.com).
·
UK registered companies
For a full list of shareholders you could ask a friendly institutional
investor (if you know one!) to run the company through their Bloomberg
or CDA/Spectrum database. If you can't find a friendly insider, CDA/Spectrum
offer one-time searches for a fee of a few hundred pounds. Alternatively,
you can get a full list of shareholders from Companies House (see Using
company registrars). The list comes on a microfiche, which you'll need
a special machine to view - your local library should have one. The
list gives the names and addresses of shareholders as well as the number
of shares they hold.
For large companies
the list can be enormous e.g. one major oil company has over a million
shareholders. In such instances you may be better off (at least in terms
of time well spent) using a fee paying service to get a targeted list
e.g. of pension funds that hold shares in the company. One of the best
services is Thomson Financial First Call (http://www1.firstcall.com).
A basic search is likely to cost about £100.
Often the real owner
of shares is 'represented' by a fund manager or 'Nominee', but each
nominee entry will have a code for the client (the person/organisation
whose money it is) before the number of shares. You can look these codes
up in the Index of Nominees and Beneficial Owners, which will tell you
who each code stands for. It's published by Fulcrum Research (tel. 0207
253 0353) and costs about £300 - ask your library to order it.
·
US registered companies
To obtain a list of a US company's top 200 or so institutional
shareholders check its SEC 13-F filing (see Using company registrars).
If you're filing a shareholder resolution, the company has to provide
a list of shareholders so that you can solicit their vote. You'll be
asked to promise to only use the list for this purpose however, and
to not share it with anyone else. Further information on obtaining US
shareholders' names can be found in FOE-US's Handbook on Socially-Orientated
Shareholder Activism. This is available from the group's website
at www.foe.org/international/shareholder
·
Companies in the rest of the world
As in the UK and US you'll probably need to find a local contact
willing to do the necessary research. In most cases you'll need to retrieve
the information through the national agency that regulates companies
(see Using company registrars).
Some stock exchanges have searchable databases of the companies listed
on their exchange. In some cases, e.g. Jakarta, names of the major shareholders
are provided. Useful links to the major stock exchanges of the world
can be found on the Corporate Finance Network website
(www.corpfinet.net).
·
Finding out about an investment company's investments
This is extremely tricky. The big companies usually won't tell you their
investments. However, many big investment companies have unit trusts.
Every three months, fund managers produce a report on their investments
and if you phone an investment company and ask about one of their trusts
they will send you a copy of this report. This report may give a picture
of how the other trusts within that company are invested. Finding out
what companies a financial institution is investing in is more thoroughly
discussed in The Campaigners' Guide to Financial Markets (see
Further reading).
Strategy
and prospects
Company strategy is generally explained in the company's annual report
(see Getting a basic overview of a company). It tends to be described
in much more detail in a company's quarterly presentation of financial
results, and other strategy presentations to the financial markets.
These presentations will be reported in the financial press. They can
also often be found on a company's website in the 'investor relations'
section. You should always look at this section of the company's website,
since the company doesn't expect people who aren't interested in investing
to look at it. You can therefore find out things that you wouldn't otherwise
come across.
Of course, company presentations are intended to 'sell' the company
strategy and so they should be treated with caution. The FT (see Media)
is the most accessible source of a more balanced analysis, especially
the 'Lex' column. Try searching the FT website (http://search.ft.com/search/index.html)
by 'company name' + 'lex.' Also try searching 'company name' + 'analysts'
or 'results.'
Alternatively, you could look at the broker recommendations in the research
section of the Yahoo Finance website (http://finance.yahoo.com/l). You
can also obtain a company share-price graph from this website. This
will show you whether there is any upwards or downwards trend, both
in absolute terms and relative to the company's sector or the stock
exchange respectively. Look out for sharp peaks or troughs and steep
rises or falls. Check out the news on the days in which these occur.
If you really want the low-down on a company's strategy and financial
prospects however, you'll need to look at some analysts' reports (see
Analysts reports). Reading relevant market research and trade journals
(see Industry sources) can also give you a good idea of the company's
place in its sector and its future prospects. The Trade Association
and Professional Institute for the sector that you're interested in
may also provide useful information and advice (see earlier section).
You could also try contacting the relevant government department (see
Government sources).
Financial
Analysts
Analysts advise investors on whether to buy or sell a company. They
are therefore key to many lobbying strategies (see The Campaigners'
Guide to Financial Markets for more information on this). Companies
won't tend to tell you who their analysts are. As with details of shareholders,
the easiest way to find out the names of analysts is by using a major
financial database, such as Bloomberg. If you don't have access to such
a database the best way to find out the name of analysts is the following
directories. All are available in the City Business Library, London
(see Libraries):
Nelson's
Directory of Investment Research
This comes in three volumes:
Vol. I - Institutional research firm profiles, analysts by industry/research
speciality, analysts and the companies they follow.
Vol. II - US company profile/analyst coverage
Vol. III - International profiles/analyst coverage
Briton's
Index: Investment Research Analysts
Unlike Nelson's this doesn't give analysts for each company,
only by industry sector. Using Nelson's will probably give you far more
analyst's names than you want (up to 100 for each company). You can
select the most important and best recognised ones as they are marked
with an asterisk.
Alternatively, try
the Financial Times: analysts are often quoted on the
back page of the 'Companies & Markets' section. Or search for the
company's name, along with 'companies report' (the name of the section)
or 'analyst', on the FT CD-ROM at the City Business Library, or the
FT website (http://search.ft.com/search/index.html).
Extel Survey run a competition each year for the best analysts in the
City, sector by sector. Entrants and winners are worth noting, as they
tend to be the most important and influential people. The survey is
expensive, but is held in the British Library (see Libraries), and is
sometimes referred to in the FT - do a search for 'Extel Survey.'
Advisors
For UK
and US companies the most accessible source of information is the Hemscott
website (www.hemscott.com).
Each company page on the site contains a list of company advisors, including
bankers, financial advisors, brokers, auditors and solicitors.
For more comprehensive information on the advisors of UK companies see
Crawfords Directory of City Connections. This is available in London's
City Business Library (see Libraries).
For US companies you can also look at the company's 10-K form on the
SEC's EDGAR database - www.freeedgar.com
(see Government sources).
Political
links
For information on lobbying activity, the Directory of Employers'
Associations and the Directory of Associations and Professional Bodies
in the UK (in the reference section of your local library)
list trade associations (see earlier section) relevant to an industry,
most of which carry out lobbying in the interests of their members.
Many of these will send an annual report/publicity material and membership
list if asked. (Note the distinction between a trade association, which
works for member companies, and a professional association, which works
for individuals. You can generally tell by the organisation's name.
Professional bodies are often called institutes).
You could try looking
in Hansard (see Government
sources), in particular at select committees, standing committees,
all party groups etc. Many corporations now have in-house 'government
relations' staff (i.e. lobbyists) - contact details can be found in
the classifieds section of The House magazine.
The other way of
lobbying is through political consultancies (professional freelance
lobbyists) - there are 30 or 40 main firms in the UK. About 15 of these
register at the Association of Professional Political Consultants,
at 50 Rochester Row, London SW1P 1JU, tel. 0207 828 7127. The APPC keeps
a register of who their clients are, which can be bought for £15,
or examined for free.
These days, business
people are involved directly in the machinery of government - as members
of policy committees, advisory groups and executive agencies' boards
and even as ministers. These connections may appear in biographical
details in the company annual report.
The Register
of Members' Interests tells you (in theory, at least) which
MPs are benefiting materially from which companies, although it's organised
alphabetically by MP, not by company, so it's a bit of a trawl. Political
parties also record all major donations, although they don't give amounts.
The company annual report (for a plc) is legally obliged to declare
any political or charitable donations over £200 within that year.
For more detail, try the Labour Research Department - 0207 928 0621.
Public Relations
To follow a company's PR strategy, try looking in the trade journal
PR Week (or possibly Marketing). You can find out which PR companies
it is retaining by looking through the Public Relations Consultancy
Yearbook, published by the PRCA. A web search can also throw up some
connections.
In addition, O'Dwyer's
daily on-line magazine at www.odwyerpr.com
and The Holmes Report website - www.holmesreport.com/index.cfm
are useful resources for researching a company's PR strategy.
Environmental
policy
Many companies now produce annual environmental reports. However, they
rarely commit companies to anything radical and usually amount to little
more than a cynical PR exercise. Nevertheless, they are useful sources
of quotes and policy statements that can be used to argue against, say,
a company's involvement in an environmentally destructive project. These
reports are sometimes downloadable from the company's website or you
can phone up and ask for a copy.
Tomorrow magazine also has a directory of on-line environmental reports
for many major companies at www.enviroreporting.com.
Also chech out the Environmental Reporting Clearinghouse
at the University of Sunderland http://cei.sunderland.ac.uk/envrep/index.htm
Funding of research
Universities and supposedly independent research institutions are becoming
more and more dependent on industry finance to fund research projects.
Finding out what research a company is funding can be quite tricky.
For example, there is no comprehensive register of the funding sources
for university research in the UK. This topic is the main theme of Degrees
of Capture, a forthcoming Corporate Watch report, due to be
published later in 2002.
The research that
a company is funding will sometimes be detailed on the company's website
(see Getting a basic overview of a company). Alternatively, a web search
using an 'intelligent' search engine like Google can throw up some interesting
links. For the US, the following two databases are particularly useful:
www.ssw.umich.edu/grantetc/corps.html
and
www.fdncenter.org/grantmaker/gws_corp/corp.html
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