Researching Privately Held Companies

What is a private company?

A privately held company, also known as a private company, is not traded on a stock exchange.  Instead, these companies are often owned by a small number of shareholders who acquired shares directly through private means. This could be a group of investors, the company’s founders, management or a family.

Private companies are the most common type of company and can be small unknown subsidiaries of larger companies or large international parent companies like Huawei or State Farm. All companies start as privately held and then can list their shares on a stock exchange through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). 

While private companies can issue stock and have shareholders, these shares are not available to the general public. 

Because private companies are not listed on stock exchanges, they are not subject to the disclosure rules of these exchanges. Companies often stay private to avoid these strict disclosure rules, which helps them avoid scrutiny by the public. This means there is less information available on these companies’ operations. 

Staying private also allows a company to exercise more control over the day-to-day operations of the company and to more easily retain family ownership. Furthermore, by staying private, companies do not need to go through the hassle and cost of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to list the company on a stock exchange. The downside of staying private is that it can be more difficult to access capital, which is readily available on stock exchanges.

Finding registration information

As mentioned in the section on corporate structure, companies must legally register in one jurisdiction. This can be a country, state or province. Often this is where the company is operating but sometimes companies are set up in secrecy jurisdictions or tax havens.

Understanding where a private company is legally registered is important for accessing key information about the company. Each jurisdiction maintains a corporate registry, sometimes called a company register or a business register, which is a database of all companies registered in that particular jurisdiction. These registries are often available online and include company registration documents and other information that can be accessed by the public, sometimes for a fee. Figuring out where a company is registered is crucial to knowing which corporate registry to search for this information.

Understanding where a company is registered is also helpful in determining which laws apply to it—and which laws the harmful project you are researching might be violating. This information can be critical for informing your advocacy strategy, including potential complaints to non-judicial grievance mechanisms or the courts in a particular jurisdiction. For more information, see:

If you know a company’s name but are not sure where it is legally registered, you can try searching OpenCorporates. The website amalgamates information from 140 jurisdictions. If the company you are researching appears in OpenCorporates, the site will provide a link to the corporate registry where it pulled the information from. While the site covers many countries, don’t be discouraged if you do not find the company you are looking for, because many jurisdictions do not appear in that database. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has a catalog of research databases which provides links to corporate registries around the world.

Once you know the jurisdiction of the private company you are researching,  the corporate registry should be the first place you look. Finding the company you are researching in one of these databases will confirm where it is registered. It will also provide you with a primary source of information about the company.

Most corporate registries will provide:

• Company address and past addresses.
• Registration date.
• Names and addresses of directors.
• Names and addresses of past officers.

Some corporate registries will also provide:

• Shareholders, their addresses, how many shares they hold, if they are the beneficial owner and their nationalities.
• The purpose a company was set up for.
• A simple annual report.
• Financial information on loans, revenue, deals etc.

What you can access varies by jurisdiction. Secrecy jurisdictions (which are also often also tax havens) require the least disclosure. In these places companies can be incorporated quickly, cheaply and with few questions asked. In these places, company ownership information is not readily available or easily accessible online. 

On the other hand, the most transparent jurisdictions provide free searchable databases, information on directors and shareholders, and require annual filings.

How to research private companies?

Because private companies are not bound by stock exchange disclosure rules, there is less publicly available information on these entities. However, information about these companies can be found through a variety of sources.

• Corporate registries: As mentioned above, corporate registries should be the first place to look for information on private companies. See previous section.

• Company websites: If the company you are researching has a website, look through this site thoroughly. Companies often provide useful clues about where they are located, their activities, where their product is sold and their future plans.

• News searches: Search news articles that mention the company you are researching using Google News or other news amalgamation sites.

• Social media: If the company or its officers have social media accounts (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.), look through those accounts to assist your research. Make sure to also search for their names in the posts of others, even if they do not have an account of their own.

• Subscription-based sites: Various sites such as Crunchbase, Dun and Bradstreet, Refinitiv Eikon and Orbis offer information about private companies. However, the fees to use these services are often prohibitively high. Ask around to see if anyone you are connected to could help with searching these databases.

• Company disclosures: Sometimes information about private companies appears in the filings of a publicly traded company. For instance, a private company may establish a joint venture with a public company, whose filings may provide details on the private company. Companies regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclose information here. In other cases, a privately held company may decide to sell bonds or other kinds of debt on a stock exchange, which will require it to disclose information to the public, even though its shares are not traded on that exchange.

Public companies commonly disclose their ownership stakes in subsidiaries and their countries of registration. Sources such as annual reports and offering prospectuses can shed light on corporate structures. These documents can be found on the websites of the relevant stock exchange, the relevant financial regulatory body, or the company itself.

• Creative internet searches: Use Google search operators to conduct targeted searches. For advice on using Google, see here.

• Offshore Leaks Database: Many corporate groups establish subsidiaries in countries known as tax havens, which have low taxes for businesses. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists maintains a large searchable database of companies registered in tax havens. The information in this database comes from a series of leaks to journalists. However, the database is not exhaustive, so even if you don’t find the company you are looking for, it could still be registered in a tax haven.

• Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI): The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has 50 member countries who have agreed to make data on their extractive industries public. There is often information about companies operating on the ground and their ownership structures in these country reports.