Career and Job Search Help Blog

Last time we talked about Financial Post Advisor (well, I talked, you listened!-) and this time I will focus on Mergent Online. For anyone who would like to compile a list of U.S. companies for the purpose of cold-calling, this is a great database!

A bit of background: John Moody began collecting and delivering financial information for the U.S. investment community in 1900. Moody's directories, which changed names in 2001 to Mergent can be found at Toronto Reference Library and North York Central Library. (If you plan to go to North York Central Library, phone them first to see what they have.) Moody's later produced Financial Information Services – FIS Online, which became Mergent Online in 2003.

Here you will find detailed global financial data on over 15 000 U.S. public companies, 20 000 non-U.S. public companies from 100 countries, 20 000 U.S. municipal bond issuers and extensive information on corporate bonds, dividends, corporate actions and unit investment trusts. There are also more than 2 000 Canadian companies listed. Included also are industry reports on many sectors (with a date range of the past 3 years) as well as up-to-date country reports on more than 90 countries. The only portions that TPL does not subscribe to is the company archives or private company information.

Company information include contacts, business description, history, joint ventures, properties, subsidiaries, long term debt, executives, and capital stock. Company financials include reported annual balance sheets, ratios, income statements, balances sheet and ratio analysis, news reports and competitors.

There are different ways of searching on Mergent: Basic Search allows you to search by company name, ticker sysbol or CUSIP number, or by SIC, NAICS or MIC classificiation codes.

Advanced Search allows you to search on a range of criteria such as corporate executives, industry or text (subject) to produce very specific reports.

Executive Search allows you to chose criteria such as job function, number of employees, salary and even education to build a search.

With EDGAR Search, you can find company documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Search by company name, ticker, or do a filing date or filing type search. You can even set up email alerts.

If you want to save your searches, you have to be using the Advanced or Executive Search modes. You can created and save reports in MS Word, Excel, PDF or HTML formats. You can of course print as well!

My advice is that if you are using this database for the first time, you should go to either Toronto Reference Library, North York Central Library or Urban Affairs Library (the 3 Research & Reference libraries in the Toronto Public Library system) for further assistance.

Good luck with your search!