Hoover's Handbook of American Business Ref. Hoover's Handbook of World Business Ref. These books contain information sheets on companies, providing an overview, history, chart of key financial information for the past 10 years, list of major products, rankings, and competitors. International Directory of Company Histories . 1-7 Provides accurate and detailed information on the historical development of over 1500 of the world's largest companies.
Arrangement is by industry, then company.
Put out by the publishers of Moody s, it includes much of the information in the next 3 sources. Moody's Industrial Manual . Offers detailed history, examination of business and products, and financial data for thousands of companies, with an eye toward purchasing stocks. Moody's Company Data on CD-ROM . This CD contains all the information in the Moody's manual, and can be manipulated in a variety of interesting ways to extract the information you need.