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.
Articles on Company Registries:
ORBIS:
contains basic data including financial information on more than 400 million companies globally including private companies.
Data include:
(note that the database contains standardized data. Use the Help Menu function > Content > Online Guides (English) > Orbis User Guide > Data > Financial data to find format definitions)
Key elements in the database:
NB! No access to Global Reports, Royalty Agreement and Industry Profiles.
(Source: ORBIS > My ORBIS > About ORBIS > Coverage; december 2020)
KOMPASS
Kompass contains information on more than 50 million companies worldwide, including about 240.000 Danish companies. Traditionally, Kompass had its strength in the business-to-business (B2B) area, but now also covers e.g. the retail area.s.
EMIS Emerging Markets:
Provides financial statements, company information, industry analyses, equity quotes, macroeconomic statistics, news articles, and market-specific information on emerging countries.
Access to company profiles, reports, news and more from more than 170 countries
Business Source Ulimate:
Contains scholarly journal articles in business and related disciplines, company profiles, market and industry reports, SWOT analyses, cases etc. Available publications are pulled from MarketLine, MedWatch, EIU, WEFA, Countrywatch, ICON Group, and many more.
Company information provides you with a quick overview of company key figures, subsidiaries, people, and industry and access to articles.
Company profiles, located in the More menu, contains profiles of companies, including SWOT analyses, competitor lists, as well as company histories.
GlobalData Explorer
contains more than 750.000 company profiles and 20.000 industry profiles covering 215 countries. Some company profiles are more comprehensive than others and include a SWOT analysis and brief biographies of key executives.
GlobalData Explorer also includes Company financial analysis tools. This analysis tool consists of four different databases covering more than 400.000 companies worldwide:
Passport (earlier name GMID - Global Market Information Database)
Company profiles: analytical profiles of the top international players in the consumer market industry.
Global market research database providing statistics, analysis, reports, and surveys on industries, companies, countries and consumers worldwide.
Factiva:
Select the Companies/Markets tab followed by Company and enter in a company name or ticker symbol. View company snapshot, company news and annual financials for the previous 5 years (balance sheet, cash flow, income statement, key ratios).
Limited information on private companies in this section of Factiva. But you may find many articles on all kinds of companies.
The S&P Capital IQ platform is a web-based platform providing highly structured, in-depth financial data and information on over 63,000 public and 4.5 million private companies, as well as data on markets, industries and people.
Companies: the backbone of the S&P Capital IQ platform is a collection of highly structured corporate and market data. Coverage: in total, Capital IQ has a base coverage of more than 11 million companies, of which about 10,9 million are active. However, in terms of detailed coverage, the universe is smaller, with 63,000 public companies and 4.5 million private companies, totalling 99% of global market capitalization.