Subject Guides: Case Competition and Case Studies: Company Reports

Company Tutorials

Marketline: Company SWOT Analyses
Private vs Public Tutorial
This tutorial will demonstrate how to determine if a company is public or private & the differences between the two.

Global/Multi-Country

Find current and historical annual reports for companies from all over the world.

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
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Copies of annual reports and profiles for 11,000 public companies. Broad global coverage.
Orbis (Bureau van Dijk) This link opens in a new window
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Financial information and original corporate reports (annual, SEC filings, corporate responsibility documentation). Includes information on private companies.
Orbis provides information on close to 400 million companies (both private and public) and entities across the globe. 41 million of these have detailed financial information. There are three additional modules hosted on the Orbis platform:

EDGAR Filings are US SEC documents available for publicly quoted companies on US stock exchanges, banks, and insurance companies. Examples would be 8-K, 10-K, Proxy, and information statements.

News Service aggregates news pieces from several sources, including Acquire Media, Dow Jones, and Thomson Reuters. Access includes full articles and tags for topics, industries, and countries.

Zephyr is the most comprehensive database of deal information, and it is updated hourly, and is useful for corporate finance research. It contains information on M&A, IPO, private equity / venture capital deals, rumors, and other transaction-level details.
Refinitiv This link opens in a new window

What's in an MD & A

Management's explanation of events affecting the company's performance and management's expectations for the coming year, including:

core business
objectives and strategy
capability to deliver results - resources, risks and relationships
results and outlook
key performance measures and indicators

Adopted from: Management's Discussion and Analysis-Guidance on Preparation and Disclosure (Chartered Professional Accountants Canada-CPA. 2014)

American Filings

The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is the national regulator that public companies must file with. All filings are found in the EDGAR database. Who files?

U.S. public parent companies
International companies with securities traded in the U.S. must also file (20F)

Most frequently referenced filings: (Note: Annual Reports are NOT an SEC Filing)

10K = company's annual financials (THE major filing)
10Q = company's quarterly financials
8K = disclosure of unscheduled significant events
DEF 14A (Proxy Statement) = matters voted on at annual shareholders meeting
20F = annual filing of non U.S. public parent companies trading in the U.S.

For more Information on SEC filings see the Form types section on the SEC's Using EDGAR to Research Investments page.