Public Limited Companies (PLCs) that trade on the London Stock Exchange are required to disclose information on a regular basis to Companies House. For a summary of the documents firm must disclose see the Companies House Forms Introduction. These are the primary documents for researching public Limited Companies in the UK. The most commonly used is the Annual Return (AR01) which contains include a wide variety of information of the operation of the firm, and a wealth of financial information. It is equivalent to Form 10-K is the U.S. The Notice of Meeting is distributed in advance of the annual meeting and includes information on items to be voted on, and background information on Directors. The Notice of Meeting, often referred to as a Proxy statement, is equivalent to the DEF14A (Proxy Statement) in the U. S. The Annual Return and the Notice of Meeting, along with additional information, are available for a small fee from Companies House WebCHeck They also often available free of charge on the company website which may also include a link to their own annual report and other information. In addition to the primary documents, a variety of firms compile and repackage this information for use by researchers. This includes free sites such as Yahoo Finance and pay services such as Datamonitor and Mergent Online. We focus on free sites commonly available on the internet, and indicate which sites are fee-based. Many of these fee-base sites are available at your local public library, university or college library.
Explore The Private Sector Chart. It provides a visual representation for the kinds of information that needs to be gathered and a sequence for conducting the research on U. K. public limited companies. Look in the Resources Section to find various print versions of this chart. To begin, start with Question 1 on the right and work down the list to complete a basic corporate profile. Good luck!