Tips for getting facts about foreign investment

There is a wealth of information available on public companies in the US, Canada and the UK. See also JNet's Business Pages for many more resources.

1. US companies:

• Wall Street Research at www.wsr.com You have to know the company ticker (ie, Shell is ) To find the name,
• Hoovers at www.hoovers.com Type in the name and find out basic news, directors and statistics
• SEC filings at www.edgar.com. All US-registered companies have to file with the Securities Exchange Commission. You can get these documents for free. This includes annual reports, letters to stockholders and bulletins. This can be important because when a company announces a major investment in a new country or the building of a new plant, they send out details to their investors.

2. UK companies:

The Financial Times is a good place to start. (You have to register, but it’s free at www.ft.com.) Their Company Briefs section at www.ft.com/hippocampus/cobrief.html is especially helpful. Check out your country’s vital economic statistics at Country Briefs at www.ft.com/hippocampus/country.html

Motley Fool UK at http://www.fool.co.uk/ will also give you good gossip and some insider news

UK Company News at www.companynews.co.uk is a very useful way to search for company information, allowing you to search by keyword at http://www.companynews.co.uk/htmpages/cnsearch.htm

Hemscott Equites Direct at www.hemscott.com/EQUITIES/ is a free service allowing you to search for latest company reports, chairman statements, results.

UK Corporate Reports at www.corpreports.co.uk/ gives you balance sheet, chairman's statement, directors and advisors. (Free registration)

3. Canadian companies:

• Advice for Investors at www.adviceforinvestors.com is the best place to start. Simply put in the name of any company and a page will appear with links to the company’s latest news releases, its home page and its latest financial disclosures
• Canada Newswire at www.newswire.ca and CCN Newswire Portfolio at http://www.cdn-news.com/ both allow you to search for press releases from corporations. Choose the company, organization or subject you want and you'll get their press releases mailed to you every day
• SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com/homepage.htmgives you easy access to annual reports or any other information. You can do a search at http://www.sedar.com/search/search_form_pc.htm
  
  

4. Other countries:

• ReutersMoneyNet - Search news by company at http://www.moneynet.com/content/MONEYNET/News/NewsHeadlines.asp
  
• IntelliSearch at www.intellisearch.com provides unlimited access to more than 1,600 business journals, trade publications, news wires and newspapers plus stock market and investment data on over 20,000 public, private and international companies
  
• Intellifact at www.intellifact.com boasts 300,000 company listings
• European Investor at www.europeaninvestor.com/usa/en/html gives you news, views, stocks and good links
  
• Companynews-France at www.companynews.org/ covers France

5. Private companies

It is much harder to find information about private companies because they are not obliged to disclose information to governments and stock exchanges. (That’s why for this exercise you should choose a publicly traded company). You can find some information about private companies by using a general search engine such as Google (at www.google.com) or perhaps the company has been featured in one of the corporate criticism sites listed below.

6. Corporate critics:

• Corpwatch at www.corpwatch.org
• Greenpeace at www.greenpeace.org
• Econet at www.econet.org
• More resources at www.journalismnet.com/business/criticism.htm and www.journalismnet.com/alternate