Annual Reports (of businesses)

Publicly-traded companies produce annual reports for their shareholders. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to file 10K reports annually, and these usually contain more detail than annual reports, such as company history, organizational structure, equity, holdings, subsidiaries, earnings per share, etc.

There are a variety of ways to locate these reports to find information about the companies:

• Database Resources

  Mergent Online is a great first-stop resource for financial information of publicly-traded businesses worldwide, and includes scanned annual reports and 10Ks. Mergent also links to EDGAR (Securities and Exchange Commission) filings and corporate histories.

  In addition, Mergent offers other government filings in a variety of downloadable formats (PDF, html, MS Word, and MS Excel). A wealth of other financial reports are available, including equity reports (look under the Reports tab for equity reports).

  Mergent can be accessed online with your SFPL library card number and PIN.

• On the Internet (Free Resources)

  • www.AnnualReports.com : A collection of hundreds of the annual reports and 10K reports of companies traded on the U.S. stock exchanges, including most of the Fortune 500. Search alphabetically, by company name, by ticker symbol, by sector, or by industry.
  • http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml (Also known as EDGAR) : Full-text searchable index to the filings by corporations to the Securities and Exchange Commission that are available to the public (including 10-K reports). EDGAR stands for Electronic Data Gathering Analysis And Retrieval.
  • The Public Register : This service provides free annual reports of public companies trading on the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, and OTC exchanges.

• Older Annual Reports on Microfiche (1967 -- 1996)

  Older annual reports (older than 1996) can be much harder to find. The Library has a collection of older annual reports -- some dating back to 1967 -- on microfiche. Quarterly reports, proxy statements and 10Ks may also be available. For help finding annual reports on microfiche, ask at the Business, Science & Technology Center desk on the 4th floor. The fiche must be used in the Library on our 5th floor microfiche readers and printers (yes, reports can be printed).

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