Finding Information about Businesses

Find information on private companies

Directories

• Secretary of State Corporations Division Business Names Search
  • Note: can also search by owner or corporate officer name
• State Library of Oregon subscription database: Reference Solutions (U.S. Businesses)
  • Useful for addresses, contacts, web address, corporate linkages (parent/child company relationships), local branches, nearby competitors.
  • Use advanced search to search by business type and business characteristics (# of employees, estimated revenue, personal names)
  • Use U.S. Historical Businesses for businesses that have closed
  • Note: revenue amounts, number of employees provided are only estimates

News Sources

To find stories about businesses

• State Library of Oregon subscription databases:
  • America’s News
    • full-text of more that 2,000 U.S. news sources and more than 90 local Oregon newspapers including The Oregonian (Portland, OR)
  • US Newsstream
  • full-text of newspapers including Statesman Journal (Salem, OR), New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
  • Business Source Premier
  • indexing and full-text of business magazines, trade publications - tutorial video
  • Gale OneFile: Business
  • indexing and full text of business magazines, trade publications
• Google News

Oregon Regulatory Database Examples 

To find information businesses are required to provide by law

• Oregon Consumer and Business Services Oregon chartered banks search (select "Call" report type)
• Other examples:
  • Department of Agriculture Food Safety
  • Department of Environmental Quality wastewater permits
  • Public Utilities Commission eDocket search
  • Department of Justice Consumer Protection Be InfORmed

Image: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives