Archive
Current and historical company annual reports
Company websites
For current annual reports, a company’s website is often the quickest and easiest option.
Databases that The University of Manchester subscribes to:
- PI Navigator: Include Annuals / 10K / 20-F (Company Reports and Accounts) in search criteria or select Perfect Filings tab and include Document Type UK Annual Reports or similar depending on your search.
- Mergent Archives: Select Search Mergent Achives for annual report search
- Thomson Research: Quick Company Search: and Content Profile, Filings
- Thomson ONE.com: Annual reports are under Filings tab
Annual reports websites
Try EDGAR for reports filed with US SEC.
Chairman’s optimism and future return uncorrelated?
chairman’s statement optimism and following year return (click to expand)
This scatterplot shows the relationship between the percentage total return in the following year (RetP1) and the optimism of the chairman’s statement in the annual report (Optim). In general it appears that increased optimism only corresponds with increased variability in returns.
This has only been done for a small sample of 29 FTSE 100 companies over the years 2006-2011. The main purpose was to provide an example of analysis using textual, rather than numeric, information in company annual reports.
Steps followed:
- Identify the FTSE 100 companies at 31 December 2011. [Historical FTSE 100 Index constituents (July 2012)]
- Obtain the annual reports for a sample of these companies. [Where can I find current and historical company annual reports?]
- Convert the annual reports from PDF to Text.
- Extract the chairman’s statement from each report. (This could only be done manually one report at a time)
- Analyse the statements using the text analysis software Diction.
- Link the results from Diction with the total return (obtained from Datastream) for the same and following year [Total shareholder return (July 2011)].
From a library perspective the main interest is the research process rather than the results, and specifically the data collection needed to assemble a dataset for analysis (steps 1-4 above). Researchers have to work hard to transform the raw data available to them into a dataset ready for analysis.
Related Research
Manchester academic research in a similar area –
Schleicher, T. (2012) “When is good news really good news?” Accounting and Business Research 42, no. 5, pp, 1-27. eScholarID:158855 | DOI:10.1080/00014788.2012.685275
Schleicher, T., Walker, M. (2010) “Bias in the tone of forward-looking narratives.” Accounting and Business Research 40, no. 4, pp. 371-390. eScholarID:75654 | DOI:10.1080/00014788.2010.9995318
Further exploring our small sample dataset
Another scatterplot showing the relationship between the percentage total return in the current year and the optimism of the chairman’s statement shows a similar lack of correlation.
Summary stats (click to expand)
Looking at both the certainty and the optimism that is measured in the chairmen’s statements, this small sample shows that a certainty below average and an optimism below average give a total return in the following year, and in the current year, that higher.
This is only a small sample, and we have no theory why selecting companies because their chairman’s statement is uncertain and pessimistic should be better than random selection.
SCoRe (search company reports) website closing
The SCoRe (Search Company Reports) website closes on 21st March 2013. SCoRe is a catalogue of printed company reports held in UK libraries.
In the ten years since the SCoRe project ended in 2002, annual reports have become increasingly available online through company websites and commercial providers. Demand for the printed annual reports has declined as a result.
Going forwards, by the end of 2013, the British Library and Guildhall Library will hold the main collections of print and microfilm annual reports for UK companies, supplemented by the planned digital archives at the London Business School and University of Manchester.
SCoRe Working Group (2012) Advance notice: Closure of SCoRe. http://www.score.ac.uk/pdf/SCoRe_Closure_Notice_2012-12.pdf (accessed 20 March 2013)
The University of Manchester SCoRe archive includes over 80,000 annual reports. Over 60,000 of these are in MIRAC fiche format and therefore difficult to read, and the 20,000 in print are mostly from 1995 onwards and available online.
The following – taken from the SCoRe web links page http://www.score.ac.uk/links.asp – are all free websites, except Companies House, which is included because of its key role in the collection of UK companies’ legal filings.
Business Archives Council
Exists to encourage the preservation of British business records, to advise on the administration and management of archives and current records and to promote the use of business records.
CAROL (Company Annual Reports On Line)
One-point access to web versions of company annual reports for a selection of companies in Europe, Asia and the US.
Companies House
Free access to brief information about UK companies. Order filed documents for a fee. Also includes information about the activities and strategic direction of Companies House.
Financial Times Annual Reports Service
The FT/World Investor Link service allows you to order printcopies of the most recent reports for companies listed in the share price service in the FT newspaper.
UK National Register of Archives
The NRA is maintained by the Historical Manuscripts Commission and contains information on the nature and location of manuscripts and historical records that relate to British history. You can search archives by corporate name.
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
The US equivalent of Companies House. The site gives electronic access to filed US company documents, including annual reports, via the EDGAR database. Documents from 1993 to the present.
Mergent archives now available from the Library
The library has recently acquired access to the Mergent Archives of corporate and industry related documents. This online database contains more than 700,000 historical corporate documents and reports, and can be accessed from anywhere on campus (or from home with a valid VPN connection).
As part of the subscription we also gain access to the sister product Mergent Online. This internet-based suite of information resources provides access to US company data, international company data and D&B private company data, to help assist and inform your business and financial research.
Mergent Archives allows you to access a vast collection of corporate and industry related documents, covering more than 100 countries and industries. Coverage goes back to 1909. It includes PDFs of annual reports, the Moody’s manuals (later renamed Mergent): Bank & Finance, Industrial, International, OTC Industrial, Public Utility, Transportation, and OTC Unlisted.
For instant access provided by the University of Manchester Library:
Company Financial Analysis (Global Companies)
The library has a number of useful resources for the financial analysis of public companies (companies quoted on a stock exchange).
Company Accounts
Thomson Reuters’ Worldscope database provides historical accounting data – balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. It is available through Thomson One Banker and Datastream. Bloomberg also has accounting data – command FA (Financial Analysis).
Thomson One Banker, Datastream and Bloomberg can also provide data on a company’s financial market performance – e.g. historical shares prices and returns, and corresponding data for market indices.
Company Filings (including Annual Reports)
Company Filings are available on PI Navigator, Thomson Research, and Bloomberg. (Recent company reports are usually available direct from the company website.)
Analysts Reports
Analyst/Broker reports are available from Thomson Research and Bloomberg (command BRC).
Company News
Factiva from Dow Jones is a extensive online news database covering a wide range of sources. (See How Business News can enhance you research for more details.) Bloomberg also provides a wide range of company, financial market and economic news.
For further tips: use tags below to find other posts on these databases, and look at the How to research … guides,
Text searching non US company annual reports
Recently, we have been offered a trial by Perfect Information on their PI Navigator database. This trial will end June 2011.
PI Navigator offers 2 unique features which are not present in other database subscriptions that we have: 1. Text searching company annual reports (text searching US company annual reports is also available in Thomson Research), 2. Corporate action varibles – over 600 items are indexed and searchable.
The ability to text search company annual reports has always been a sought after feature by academic researchers. It allows researchers to cluster certain companies in an efficient way based on certain critiera present in company’s own annual reports. For example, one can use this feature to identify all public listed UK companies which have adopted and clearly inluded corporate social responsibilities policies in their annual reports.
As a rule of thumb, this feature only applies to annual reports that have been issued since 2002.
Perfect Information is listed in the Library’s website (requires central username and password): http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/eresources/databases/p/dbname-69754-en.htm
Please contact uml.bds@manchester.ac.uk if you need any further help with the database.
Referencing tips
Business Research Plus 