Companies are either publicly or privately held. Most companies in the United States are private. Publicly held companies sell stock to the public and are required by law to provide certain information to shareholders and the government. Private companies are not legally required to disclose information about their operations and generally guard information about themselves very carefully. The result publicly held companies are easier to research than private companies.
Financial information is filed under the name of the parent company.
Use these sources to determine whether a company is private, public, or a subsidiary company. Use these sources to find basic financial information about your company. An annual report can explain how a company is organized, what it is doing, and what it plans to do in the future. This CD-ROM contains financial data for more than 12,000 public companies. It is searchable free of charge.