1. “I need to find information about a private company and I can’t find anything - help!” October 14 th :

2. Private companies are tricky – why?  There is very little they are required to report…  …so they don’t!  Even if they are huge (like the “Big 4” accounting firms)  (and many of them are small) 2

3. Is there any hope? Yes!  Capital IQ – (the cadillac of databases!)  Most detailed business descriptions, lists of executives, products, competitors, etc.  M&A, investments data  Financials – sometimes  Gotcha : access controlled by username/password which must be issued to you by Erin Wachowicz 3

4. Additional hope! 4  PrivCo – larger private companies; focus on M&A, VC, investor activity; great Advanced Search  Hot feature: source of financial information for private companies * [and IP accessible]  Additional hot feature: they are happy to take requests: you can email them about a company and they will see what they can find for you and add it to the database! * Amount of $$$ info varies by company, no guarantees.

5. More hope!  MarketLine – some reports on private companies; if no company report, may still bring up a case study, company news, or financial deals information  Article databases:  ABI/Inform, Business Source Premier, LexisNexis, Factiva  (aka: “combing for crumbs”) 5

6. And speaking of Factiva…  Searching Factiva effectively:  No double quotes needed… in fact, words entered in a series are automatically searched as an exact phrase *  Special syntax: same, near#  Special wildcard symbol: $  Notice the filter options on the results page! 6 * So don’t just type in a series of words – you’ll get Zero results unless that exact series of words appeared in an article somewhere! Bonus tip of the week!

7. Caveats – private company research  There is no “one answer” – none of the resources reviewed here will have every private company  Each source will have differing amounts of information  There are no guarantees! 7 First and foremost: Get your expectations under control.

8. Join us next week, Oct. 21, 5:00pm for: “We have to report on a new deal every week in Prof. Couch’s Private Equity class- how can I possibly find what I need?!” With a virtual appearance of special guest Michael Linchitz of The Deal Pipeline! 8