| page 3 previous page One of the categories is molded plastic, which I would think is a Venture Industries product category, based on my accumulating information on Venture Industries at this point. There are 7,318 companies in the Thomas Global Register database that, apparently, make molded plastic products, including 2,343 in the United States. I cannot find any further way of refining the search, such as products and locations (other than country) or products and company name. Using company names, searching is much easier – just enter the company’s name – and if the company is in the database you get fairly easily address, contact, and product information. Searching in the “US only” version of the Thomas Register on Venture Industries returned 97 companies, one of which is affiliated with our management accountant’s Venture Industries -Venture, in Seabrook, New Hampshire. This is a Venture Industries-owned asset, confirmed from other sources. Information in the Thomas database indicates the Seabrook site has 500 to 1,000 employees and assets between $50 million and $100 million. Unfortunately, and I do not understand why, searching for Venture did not return anything about the corporate headquarters in Fraser, Michigan. Another website linked to from Rutgers for finding lists of companies and products is mniguide.com, maintained by Manufacturer’s News, Inc. Like the Thomas Register sites and databases, this site also can be a useful database, but you have to work at it. One application (useful here in achieving our goals given above) of the database is associating specific product types with companies, and from this, companies that might be of interest to you later when comparing your company to competitors. Section III. Seeking Financial Performance Information On a Company. This section identifies Internet sites where company financial performance information can be obtained. If you do not have any (or very little) information yet on your company, it is more likely than not that you will not find much, if any, financial information. Financial information for companies is fairly easily obtained on the Internet, if the companies issue securities (not just stock for sale, but also debt) to the public. This is because such companies have to provide financial information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which makes the information public. Therefore, a good place to begin our search for company financial information is at the SEC website www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Even if the company were considered private, I would search the SEC database. If somewhere in the company’s history, the company has registered with the SEC, and filed documents, these documents should be available. The SEC provides a search system at this site for finding company filings made to the SEC. However, the SEC search system is not a "full text" search system – the complete documents are not searched for a term used in the search. You can “full text” search SEC filings at commercial sites, which charge for this search. (Such a site will be identified later.) The SEC search system will allow you to pull up the filing, based on terms that are in the document’s “heading”. At the SEC search site, you can get more details on what is available in the SEC database and how best to search for this information. Searching on the company name or its Central Index Key (CIK) number (a number assigned by SEC, which is unique to each company that files, or has filed, information) is the routine way of searching the SEC database. You can search on other terms – terms that appear in the header information. The header information includes such things (besides company name and CIK number) as address, filing date, an SEC-assigned SIC number, and type of filing. You can also search for filings, from all companies, filed over a recent time period. You can access SIC code categories and code numbers from the SEC search site. At the SEC search site, click on Search for Company Filings to search for company filings. From the SEC site, I found that Venture Industries has a CIK code number of 0000916105. Here is a summary of some other information that I found at the SEC site on Venture Industries. Venture has filed several 8-K statements since the spring of 2002. These sometimes are filed when something unusual is happening with the company. Seeing so many 8-Ks may not be a good sign – the company may be under some type of stress. Looking at a few of these Venture Industries’ 8-Ks indicates a connection to the upcoming bankruptcy action in March 2003. Venture Industries does file 10Qs and 10Ks, a source of financial information. Apparently, Venture Industries issued stock, all of which is owned by Venture Holdings Trust (which is owned by Larry Winget). So a privately owned company, as a strategy, might issue stock publicly, but not available for trade, and have to file financial information. Even if a company is “private”, one should still check the SEC database. The 2002 10K that Venture Industries filed indicates that Venture Industries now has no more than 16% of net sales to any single customer (Audi), with the next largest customers being Volkswagen at 12% and GM at 12%. This is a significant reduction from previous years when the top customers had a much larger % of sales. Major competitors are Magna International, Meridan Automotive, Collins and Aikman, Lear Corporation, Plastic Omnium, Faurecia, Dynamit Noble, Rehau, The Budd Company Plastic Division, Johnson Controls, Inc., and Visteon Automotive. Net sales have been: 1999-$1.4 B; 2000-$1.8 B; and 2001-$1.9 B. Net income has been: 1999- $(14.5 M); 2000-$9.1 M; and 2001- $1.0 M. Gross profit margins have been: 1999-11.0%; 2000-12.4%, and 2001-12.3%. Here is some information, from the SEC database, on the competitors that Venture lists in its 10K (the best source for competitor information is the company itself). Of the eleven competitors that Venture lists, only four of them are registered, or have been registered recently, with the SEC, suggesting the others are private, foreign, or maybe a subsidiary. From the SEC database, Magna is a Canadian company, is a much bigger company than Venture, and, like Venture, Magna is primarily an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) global parts supplier. Whereas Venture had about 12,000 employees in 2002, Magna had about 70,000. Also, Magna supplies much more than induction-molded plastic parts to OEMs. Magna has similar customers to Venture. More of its sales are concentrated in a few OEMs, for example Daimler Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford. Magna had automotive revenues in 2000 of $10.1 B; 2001-$10.5 B; and 2002 -$12.4 B. Net income was: 2000-$495 M; 2001-$521 M; and 2002-$550 M. Johnson Controls, Inc., headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has two product groups: environmental controls and automotive systems. The automotive group provides seating, instrument panels, overheads, floor consoles, door systems, and batteries. In 2002, 14% of automotive sales were to Daimler Chrysler; 10% to Ford; and 15% to GM. Johnson Controls considers it competitors to be Lear, Faurecia, Intier (a spin-off from Magna), Delphi, and Visteon. In 2002, Johnson had about 110,000 employees. Net sales from the automotive group in 2000 were $12.7 B; 2001-$13.6 B; and 2002-$15.0 B. Operating income was: 2000-$765.2 M; 2001-$720.5 M; and 2002-$862.8 M. Visteon Corporation, headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, is a global supplier of automotive systems, modules, and components to both OEMs and the aftermarket. Like Johnson Controls and Magna, Visteon offers many more types of parts than the plastic intrusion parts that Venture mainly offers. Visteon had about 77,000 employees in 2002. Visteon is a spin-off from Ford. Ford is the largest customer by far (80% of sales in 2002). Visteon lists its competition as American Axle, Behr GmbH, Robert Borsch GmbH, Dana, Lear, Delphi, Denso, Faurecia, Johnson Controls, Magna, Siemens VDO, TRW, and Valeo SA. Sales in 2000 were $19.5 B; in 2001-$17.8 B; and 2002-$18.4 B. Net income in 2000 was $296 M; 2001-$(97) M; and 2002-$(59) M. Lear Corporation, also a Michigan company (Southfield, Michigan), is supposedly the largest supplier of interior systems to OEMs. Lear supplies all major automobile manufactures, worldwide. Net sales in 2000 were $14.0 B; 2001-$13.6 B; and 2002-$14.4 B. Gross profit was in 2001- $1.45 B (10.3%); 2001- $1.03 B (7.6%); and 2002-$1.3 B (8.7%). Major competitors in instrumental panels and cockpit systems (made of molded plastic products, which is Venture’s primary business – molded plastic parts) include Johnson Controls, Intier (a spin-off from Magna), Delphi, Visteon, Faurecia, and a large number of smaller operations (of which Venture probably would be considered one). Going through the above searching, I have found the SEC search site, www.sec.gov.edgar.com, to be easy to use and gives access to a lot of information. This is a good first site to go to get financial data on a company, if the company is registered with the SEC. As mentioned, “full text” searching at the SEC site does not appear to be available. Commercial sites offer full text searches of the SEC filings, for a fee. One such site is www.tenkwizard.com. Click here to go to the next page. |
| Finding Company Information |