12. Parent Company

12.1 Is the company a parent or a subsidiary company?
12.2 Is the parent U.S. or foreign-owned?

If your tar­get firm is owned by a larger par­ent com­pany, it is often a game-changer. What you may ini­tially think is a local or regional firm may in fact be part of a global firm. In many instances parent companies often have representatives on the Board of Directors. These global firms may be much more dif­fi­cult to orga­nize or bar­gain with. At the same time, being part of a larger par­ent may pro­vide other oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Most, but not all, publicly traded firms are parent companies. One of the difficulties researchers encounter when they want to gather information at a divisional or subsidiary level is that all SEC filings are for the parent company. If your target firm does have a parent company, you will find that information in Form 10-K or the DEF14A (Proxy statement) available from the SEC EDGAR database. Parent companies may own a significant amount of stock and/or have representatives on the Board of Directors.

CrocTail also provides links from parent companies to subsidiaries, and from subsidiaries to the ultimate parent.

Crunchbase is a free option for getting info on corporations, including acquisition history.

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Mergent Intellect allows you to link-down to subsidiaries as well as link-up to a larger parent company through their Family Tree.

ReferenceUSA and Westlaw are also comprehensive corporate business database and both provide information on corporate family trees.