Research Guides: MAR 4480 Strategic Marketing: SEC Documents

SEC Documents - What are they?

SEC documents are official filings that publicly traded companies, broker-dealers, and insiders must submit to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These documents include financial statements, periodic reports, and other disclosures that provide detailed information about a company's financial performance, operations, and significant events. They are crucial because they ensure transparency and help investors make informed decisions by offering reliable data on a company's history and future prospects

Guide to SEC Filings
Webpage from Thomson Research which describes what information is included with each SEC Filing.
Edgar Filings Serch - SEC

Databases Company with SEC Documents

Factiva (20 concurrent user limit) This link opens in a new window
Factiva.com, from Dow Jones, includes access to a wide range of information from newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more. The broad range of content provides both local insight and global perspective on business issues and current events—especially with regard to research requiring current information on companies, industries, and financial markets.
There is a 20 concurrent user limit.

Abbreviation: djfac
Vendor: Dow Jones & Company
Subjects: Business, Communication, Finance
Type: Newspapers and Newswires
Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides U.S. company data as well as international company data including U.S. company data for over 15,000 public companies and their SEC filings, U.S. annual reports, international company data for approximately 17,000 companies, international annual reports, FactSheets, and country information. Records may be retrieved by company name, product or service category, or tradename.
Abbreviation: mergenton
Vendor: Mergent
Subjects: Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Directories, Reports
NetAdvantage (Standard & Poor's) This link opens in a new window
Find business, company and financial reports, plus investment, stock and mutual fund research. Provides financial content for public companies globally as well as hard-to-find private company information. Contains Company Stock Reports, Industry Surveys, Funds Reports, Stock Screener, Corporations, Executives and Directors Screener, Mutual Fund Screener, Corporate Bond Screener, and Compustat Excel Analytics.
Abbreviation: nasp
Vendor: Standard & Poor's
Subjects: Business, Communication, Economics, Finance, Hospitality
Type: E-Book Collections

Private Companies

Private companies don't have to file SEC documents until they go public but they often have different documents available such as fundraising pitches, financial statements made in court documents and cases, etc. PrivCo often finds these documents and uses them to create profiles. If you find a company's profile in PrivCo is lacking check with me to see if it can be updated.

PrivCo This link opens in a new window
PrivCo is a source for business and financial data on major privately-held companies, including family owned, private equity owned, venture backed, and international unlisted companies. PrivCo covers over 165,000 companies, including financial data, over 30,000 M&A transactions, and over 15,000 funding rounds. PrivCo also has over 10,000 investors, and advance search options by company, deal or investor, giving you the ability to generate fields of data within seconds based on criteria such as location, sub-industry, revenue and employee sizes, financial backing and more.

Note: create or sign in to your personal user account to access PrivCo.
Abbreviation: priv
Vendor: PrivCo
Subjects: Business, Finance
Type: Datasets / Statistics

How to Use a 10-K

10-K Report - filed annually after the end of the 4th quarter, provides the most comprehensive analysis of the company.

Business - describes domestic and international operations, business segments, history, real estate, supply chain, patents, licenses, litigation, R&D, competition & employees
Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) - CEO's explanation of company's financial condition and operations; excellent source of intelligence about corporate strategy, competitive landscape, pressure points and future directions.
Financial statements - annual, audited.
Leadership - top management bios, including prior work history and current board activity.

10-Q Report - filed three times a year, at end of first three quarters; truncated version of the 10-K; details the company's latest developments and provides a preview of the direction it plans to take

Financial statements - quarterly, unaudited.

8-K Report - unscheduled material events or corporate changes; the filing typically includes further detail and exhibits, such as data tables and press releases. The SEC requires immediate disclosure (1-3 days from occurance) for a number of events, including restated earnings, bankruptcy, acquisitions or disposition of assets, and departures or appointment of executives.

Proxy Statement (DEF-14A) - official notification of matters voted on at annual shareholder's meeting; includes compensation (salary, bonus, stock options) for company management; salaries and bios of board members, corporate committee membership and scope, and more.

20-F - 10-K equivalent for foreign companies trading on a U.S. stock exchange. NOTE: not available on SEC.gov site; look at company site or use database such as Thomson ONE Banker.

How to Read an Annual Report/10-K

10 Important Things to Analyze in a Glossy Annual Report (Business Standard, April 16, 2014)
Many U.S. public companies issue a glossy Annual Report to help their investors understand a company's financial performance, business sectors, and management views. While not an official SEC filing, this document is a nice complement to the more formal 10K; its use of color pictures and graphs/charts tell important stories about the company. The "President/CEO Letter to Shareholders" is an especially insightful document, presenting leadership's perspective on the year's performance.

How to Read a 10K Like Warren Buffet (CNBC.com, January 27, 2014)
Warren Buffett has said he loves to curl up with companies' annual reports. When asked how to get smarter, Buffett once held up stacks of paper and said he "read 500 pages like this every day". Indeed, smart fund managers think of 10-K's as puzzles or treasure hunts and relish the chance to dig through even the microscopic footnotes.

What are Investment Banking Industry Conferences?

The large Wall Street Investment Banking firms frequently sponsor industry-focused conferences in Manhattan. The presenters and attendees are made up of Wall Street analysts who follow the industry and its companies, and the CEOs and other top management from the industry's public companies.

The transcripts of these presentations are rich and timely sources of insights about industry and public company strategy, challenges, future directions, and more.

Locating Investment Banking Conference Presentation Transcripts

Company Investor Relations Website
Typically only posts most recent 2-3 presentations made by that company.

Factiva (20 concurrent user limit) This link opens in a new window
To locate Investment Banking industry conference transcripts, use one of the following search strategies:
sn=fd and hd=company name and hd=conference - searches for presentations made by a specific company at these conferences
Example: sn=fd and hd=pepsico and hd=conference
sn=fd and hd=conference and hd=industry - searches for conferences focused on specific industries
Example: sn=fd and hd=conference and hd=beverage*
sn=fd and hd=conference and (company name or company name or company name) - searches for presentations that mention key players in a specific industry as a way to find presentations about competitors or brands)
Example: sn=fd and hd=conference and hd=(pepsico or coca-cola or favored water)
There is a 20 concurrent user limit.

Abbreviation: djfac
Vendor: Dow Jones & Company
Subjects: Business, Communication, Finance
Type: Newspapers and Newswires

Franchised Businesses

Florida does not require franchises to disclose their franchise documents. There are four states that do provide the documents:

California
Indiana (just started 2019)
Minnesota
Wisconsin