Lose the Links
Ours Is to Ask Why
This was an actual quote from an article I recently came across in an “Open Source Company Research Guide”
This article will also address the difference between a standard company and a corporation, from the perspective of corporate research. The main issue here is that a corporation has addition information available that it must file with the SEC.
I am forever coming across these items - mini encyclopedias on how to research. Typically, they are a list of links, leaving you the impression that if you click enough, you can find anything. I disdain this approach to research. Combine it with misleading guidance, and my ire meter starts moving. It climbs into red when I see these guides passed around, in good faith across social media, LinkedIn, etc. Don’t. Send. Out. Lists. Of. Links. My belief is, if you recognize the absurdity in the above quote, you do not need the guidance, and if you do not, then the article you see on company research is not serving your friends very well.
What passes too often as useful frustrates me for three reasons.
The article fails to explain the nuance and degrees of their linked sources; often giving misleading statements for the sake of brevity
It implies completeness and totality when such things do not exist or when the provided sources contain significant gaps in their records
No information is provided on why/how to choose or distinguish between the linked resources; in other words of all the links listed, how do I know the best one to use or when do I go to one site over another.
I believe when you give someone a list of links, you are impeding their progress as researchers. It pushes a dabble approach when you need a direct approach. Let me elaborate, drawn from a recent list of links I ran across.
There is a lot of overlap between investigative reporters and private eyes (or similar professionals). Kroll Associates, which invented the modern corporate investigative business, was known for hiring reporters. On the other hand, private detectives often use the Investigative Reporter’s Handbook as their primary reference manual. Which is why I follow a site called Global Investigative Journalism Network. Still, they are guilty of raising my ire.
The G.I.J.N. put out a guide for “citizen investigators.” It’s stated goal is “to help non-journalists investigate even more. The sections teach techniques used by investigative journalists.” It is surely apt for business researchers and other investigators. The G.I.J.N. guide has eight pages or chapters . Before I start griping, I will say that there’s some good stuff, especially on the process of research. I will also admit that when it comes to links, their collection of real property databases from around the world is the first I’ve ever seen, and a real valuable item—within this page on digging up property records. It was the chapter on Finding Out Who Owns Companies that brought out my big bad blog lesson fulcrum. Lessons must be taught!
Their starting advice is not as bad as what I first quoted. But it’s still misleading:
Learning about corporations is one of the toughest challenges for investigators, professional or amateur. Unfortunately, the identity of the real owners may be legally disguised.
Yes, the real owners may be legally disguised. That’s a fact. People can disguise their ownership many ways. They can set up their companies in places like the British Virgin Islands where there are no public records, or they can use a nominee. Putting the company in their Grandma’s name. That’s not the issue most of the time. It’s less a question of disguise and more a question of requirement. In many places, starting and ending with the USA, there are rarely requirements that businesses disclose their real owners. Instead, they typically must disclose
A registered agent so the company can be held legally liable for its conduct
An officer, director, member, or manager – depending on the state and the type of company will dictate who and how many
After the dubious start, the links began. As is wont when you make lists, you need to sort them out. This set starts with an either/or: free or commercial. A fair distinction – not only do commercial sources cost, but they usually require some form of subscription (and with things like Lexis, a fair amount of screening). After these choices, there are several groupings but around no specific theme. As I said above, my complaint is not that these are not good resources or good places to go, but that there is no overall direction of where to go, and especially, why to go somewhere.
In these lists of links, the order flows from the easiest and broadest and then trickles down to the arcane and minor. Opencorporates.com is the first link listed in this guide for company research, and it should be your first place to go when looking up a company. It has two grand offerings. It is free and it is big, with access to a deep bench of records, so big that it spans the globe. Still, I beg of you. Is it the best place to start? Do you know the best place to start?
Going down the list, about half-way, you get a link to the Securities and Exchange Commission for their EDGAR company database, then the UK’s Companies House, and after that, SEDAR, the Canadian equivalent of EDGAR. If the company I was researching was publicly traded in the US/Canada or just based in the UK, I would start with those sites before Opencorporates.com. Should not these link lists provide that guidance? Worse, there remain holes in the Opencorporates coverage. My home state, Illinois, does not have its Secretary of State records on it; if the company you want to research is registered in Illinois, Opencorporates will not find it. Moreover, many of the states on Opencorporates do not allow searches by officer name, even if it seems like you are doing said searching—this is a fault with Opencorporates as well as the people that link to it. Leaving out this information hurts your research because you may not know what you missed.
All sites are not made equal. We researchers go to some sites because they hold the records we need. We go to other sites because of how they let us search. This. This is another lesson missing from most link lists. Will you ever find what you are looking for after clicking. It depends, of course, in knowing what you are looking for. Take SEC/EDGAR records. It’s free. It has all these filings. It does offer options. You can limit your search by filing; for instance, only getting the annual reports in your search results, which can save you a lot of time in scrolling through results. You still may be flummoxed in your searches. What if you are looking for older filings or something specific in a filing. EDGAR now has a full text search tool, and it works well enough. There are commercial sources that search better. Should not you at least understand this. Commercial company sources often have more information, but their primary advantage is how they allow you to search. It’s not just knowing what’s in a site, you have to know what you can do with that site’s information. How can it be searched.
I could go on with examples. I will wrap up with this little treat for all the people who made it this far in the article. It’s lost in the morass of links, but the G.I.J.N. guide contains a link to a truly great resource. The hyperlink provided in the G.I.J.N. guide is off, taking you only to the main page of the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Initiative website, but follow the menu, and you can get to this, their Resources page. There you will find links to Beneficial Owner Guides for many countries, including the US. I cannot speak to any guide other than the one for the US, but that one is good. Dense, filled with information, it will really inform you ahead of company searching. The silver lining with these link lists is the longest, most disorganized lists of links invariably contain nuggets of gold. Do peruse them.
Do not then, lose the link lists. Keep them until you know why. Keep them until you have done the hard reading and the true study. When you understand where to go and what site that meets your needs, that link list will come in handy.
