Use this guide to locate:
Company Information
Industry Information
When researching a company, it can be useful to first determine if it is public, private or a subsidiary of a larger company.
Public companies sell shares of the company (stocks) to the general public, and are required to submit financial information and annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is typically easier to find information on a public company.
Private companies do not sell publicly traded stocks and are not governed by the SEC, so they are not required to disclose as much information about their company. It is typically more challenging to research private companies.
Subsidiaries are just one part of a public company -- basically a smaller company within a larger one. It can be tricky finding information on subsidiaries because the parent company is not required to report on each of them individually. Finding information on the subsidiary can involve digging through reports about the parent company, looking for references to the subsidiary.