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How to Tell if a Company is Public, Private or a Subsidiary
Public companies
Sells shares of stock that represent an ownership interest and are traded on a stock exchange like NASDAQ or NYSE. The U.S. requires publicly-traded companies to report their financial performance and governance structure to the Securities and Exchange Commission annually. That makes financial information on public companies easy to find. Example: Nike Inc.
Private companies
Is not traded on any stock exchange. Privately-held companies don't have to file documents with the SEC. Consequently, finding information on private companies can be challenging. Example: New Balance
Subsidiaries
A company that is owned or controlled by another company, which could be called the parent or holding company. Subsidiaries are separate entities from their parent companies, but their financials are reported on the parent's consolidated financial statements (Investopedia, 2023). It often can be difficult to find financial or market-share data specific to a subsidiary. Example: UGG (owned by Deckers Brands)
Dr. Ozcan has encouraged you to select a publicly-traded company so that you'll have the most information available to you. Here are some strategies for finding one.
- Ask Copilot for a list of publicly traded companies in a particular industry, such as cosmetics.
- Ask Copilot for the ticker symbol of a company, such as e.l.f. Beauty or Fenty Beauty?
- Check the company's Wikipedia page. Usually, it will be listed by Company Type in the overview box
Finding Information about Publicly Traded Companies
Publicly traded companies make information available on their websites and in legal filings like 10K reports available for free through the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system.
Find additional information -- that isn't available for free to anyone -- through these library resources.
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Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowFind reports like company profiles and SWOT analyses. Pro research tip: Look at several years of reports and pay attention to what changes.
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IBISWorld This link opens in a new windowFind company benchmarking reports and financials for publicly-traded firms.
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Factiva This link opens in a new windowSearch for news articles and archived press releases -- which may be hidden in search engines like Google or Bing -- about a company. Pro research tip: Download the full-text of quarterly earnings calls.
Restrictions on AI usage
Market research reports are among the most expensive types of business information. The companies that provide our market research reports can be very strict about how their information can be used in AI tools.
IBISWorld prohibits the uploading of reports to third parties, including Copilot
Tips for Getting the Best Info from Library Databases
JMU Libraries has created several tutorials in Google Slides to help students use our specialized business resources.
Click on the name of the database to open the tutorial that shows how to search for data and cite the information you find in APA style.
