13. Subsidiaries

13.1 List subsidiaries, products, and locations.

Research­ing sub­sidiaries pro­vides you with fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the oper­a­tion and orga­ni­za­tion of your tar­get com­pany. They pro­vide you with the over­all shape and reach of the firm, which may extend far beyond what you orig­i­nally thought.

D&B reports sometimes contain information on subsidies.

Businesses must register with the Secretary of State office in the state they are located. Search Systems provides a meta search for all states in the U.S. and provinces in Canada. The best way to proceed is to choose “Corporations and Companies” and then select the state or province where the firm is headquartered. This will bring you to one or more corporate directories. This may vary by state or province. You can also search by state or province alone and explore all the possible information that is collected.

Open Corporates also provides access to public records on privately held firms worldwide.

USAspending.gov can help you identify subsidiaries by searching for a company, clicking on an award, and clicking “view child recipients.”

It is important to note that firms are structured very differently in terms of subsidiaries. Some firms have a very complex subsidiary structure, while others do not.  Some fold new acquisitions into the parent company, while others maintain them as subsidiaries. These differences may or may not be of any significance.

Paid Resources (Subscription Required)

Dunn and Bradstreet Million Dollar Directory  allows you to link-down to subsidiaries as well as link-up to a larger parent company through their Family Tree. NewsBank also provides basic information on corporations.

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