Company Information: Company databases - Basic information and financials

The term "business register" comprises the national commercial registers, companies' registers, and any other register storing primary company information and making it available to the public.
Reporting and filing requirements for companies differ from country to country and sometimes from state to state, or region to region. They also vary depending on the size and legal form of the company (sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability etc). Many of the official company registries are on the Web and some offer access to their company databases.

• list of national business registers: Wikipedia list 
   
• Overseas Registers: 
  A list of official company registers by country provided by Companies House (UK)
   
• EBRA, European Business Registry Association
  The European Business Register (EBR) is a network of National Business Registers and Information Providers from currently 28 European countries.
   
• Registers - business, insolvency & land
  Information on business, land and insolvency registers at EU and national level
   
• VIES VAT Number Validation (EU)  
  You can verify the validity of a VAT number issued by any Member State by selecting that Member State from the drop-down menu provided, and entering the number to be validated.

• OpenCorporates 
  This register collects information about companies and senior employees across countries and jurisdictions

Access to information on all kind of companies and enterprises from all over the world. Basically there are three main groups of information:

Basic and financial information: name of company, contact info, location, industrial activities and classification codes, number of employees, board of management, some financial data etc.
Finding financial information on private companies is often filled with challenges compared to all the data available for public listed companies. And finding reliable data on private companies have become of particular importance for anyone focusing on the private equity and venture capital market.

Annual reports: some databases give you access to detailed financial information 5 years back for all companies and 10 years back for quoted companies.

Financial market data: more detailed financial and market information is to be found in the financial databases (listed companies).

This survey is subdivided into "Danish Company Databases" and "International Company databases".

Company web sites can provide a wealth of information, especially for public/listed companies.  Look for press releases, investor information including presentations and events and filings such as annual reports or corporate social responsibility or "community" reports.  Use information from the company carefully and watch for bias

In your search combine the name of the company with the term investor relations, e.g. IBM investor relations

Company databases are very suitable to find companies by many different criteria such as geograhical location, size in terms of turnover or number of employees, industrial classificaton etc.

Industrial classification: Ramon - Reference and Management of Nomenclatures

Financial Markets: a marketplace where financial products are bought and sold. Financial products could be Securities (stocks, bonds), Currencies, Derivatives (options, futures) and more

A security indentifier is used to locate a trading instrument