Unlocking EDGAR's Treasures.

Public company information is not just for Wall Street anymore! The availability of SEC filings in an electronic for mat - together with the distributive power of he Internet -- has created an opportunity to deliver and receive SEC information in ways that had previously been impossible.

Which studio mogul received $2 million plus for a home screening room? Whose executives use their employees to furnish personal services? Which airline executive flew his family "free" at a cost of $90,000?

Each year, in the United States, every public company is required to disclose details of its activities, like those just mentioned, to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those reports explain whether a company's business is growing or shrinking, and why. They also disclose pending law suits, investigations by government agencies and default of bank covenants, among other juicy tidbits.

Public company information or secrets is not just for Wall Street anymore. Since 1994, the SEC has required all U.S. publicly traded companies and institutional investors to electronically file specified regulatory documents into the EDGAR[R] database (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval), including annual and quarterly reports, investment holdings and IPO registration statements.

Prior to the electronic filing system, access to these SEC documents was limited primarily to professional financial analysts and corporate lawyers. Exorbitant fees made the documents affordable mainly to large corporations or those willing and able to pay thousands of dollars per month. For the fee, customers received these filings in paper format. The advancement of technology, enabling the availability of SEC filings in an electronic format -- together with the distributive power of the Internet -- has created an opportunity to deliver and receive SEC information in ways that had previously been impossible.

The EDGAR database is regarded as one of the wealthiest and most trusted sources of information that can meet the business and personal needs of finance professionals and other individuals. With these capabilities, EDGAR-based information about customers, competitors, suppliers and sales prospects could and should be an integral part of the mix of information on any company's intranet.

The advanced search technologies of today have greatly improved the user experience in retrieving and working with millions of pages of SEC documents. Companies and individuals can now save time and money by combining multiple criteria to search EDGAR filings for general information or target specific details quickly and easily.

For instance, personalization allows users to automatically receive e-mail alerts when documents of selected companies are filed. Searches or e-mail alerts may be performed by company name, ticker symbol, industries, SIC codes, cities, states and form types. (See chart above for Forms for EDGAR filings.)

The SEC filings listed above contain the most important competitive business and financial information on public companies. This type of information provides finance professionals with the tools to harvest data, enabling them to become smarter and to perform more productively.

Many corporations are taking advantage of the extraction and parsing tools to make their employees more knowledgeable. Using a customized interface, companies have the opportunity to incorporate EDGAR information directly into their own corporate intranets.

Navigating through long, complex documents (of 300 pages or more) can often be a time-consuming and fruitless labor. To assist with this task, edgar-online.com offers a Table of Contents with one-click access to each section of a document listed down the left-hand side of the screen. These documents include: financial statements, business overview, growth strategies, risk factors, R&D spending, use of proceeds and many other required disclosures. Exhibits may include such details as commercial leases, providing the terms and location of properties. Also included are customer and employee contracts and other significant agreements, such as stock option, shareholder and joint venture agreements.

EDGAR Online is able to make the data search process more user-friendly by building enhanced technologies around the database. Clear and simple presentation of SEC data is crucial to a user's successful online research experience. The technologies remove "meaningless" SEC filing information and other data (such as computer processing codes -- random information often consuming a whole page) from the sought-after information.

Many types of corporations in a number of different vertical markets have found value in the EDGAR database. Typical users and the SEC information they most often access are outlined in the chart above.

the opportunities now exist for gaining competitive knowledge previously unavailable. For example, a credit analyst working for a towel and linen supplier can track unscheduled filings covering material events (8Ks) on all its retail industry clients to uncover issues that could impact their deliverables and payments. A motion pictures industry executive recruiter in Los Angeles can track proxy statement filings (DEF l4As) within California to stay on top of management changes that could be turned into leads. A corporate attorney with telecom expertise can track merger and acquisition filings (S-4s) in the telecommunications sector that could mean new clients. And, a journalist for a regional business magazine in Boston can track IP0-related filings (S-1s) in Massachusetts only.

One of EDGAR Online's most popular applications is a sales lead generation product, "Wealth ID." This database holds the names, addresses, telephone numbers and anticipated wealth of individuals who file a Form 144. This filing indicates someone is selling restricted stock and may soon have millions of dollars to reinvest or to purchase luxury goods. This data is extracted and summarized for certain firms that then pass the information to their salespeople throughout the country via the Internet. Thus, a salesperson arriving at his or her office each morning, can find on his or her computer names, telephone numbers and wealth potential information for individuals who have sold their 144 stock. That is very valuable prospect information.

Many useful tools are available on edgar-online.com and ipoexpress.com. These include enhanced search capabilities, email alerts, multiple file formats, spreadsheet downloads, People Search and more. These search commands return a clean page that contains only relevant information "parsed" from filings. A major functionality utilized by finance professionals is automatic download of financial information directly into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Users generally find this to be very valuable, particularly when preparing financial statements and creating benchmarking reports.

In the information-based economy, the old adage of "who you know" being more important than "what you know" is raised to new levels and enhanced possibilities. In the Internet-driven electronic environment, accurate data and information about public companies is becoming increasingly necessary in order to gain competitive advantage.

The value of SEC information about public companies and individuals extends to a variety of customers, reaching far beyond finance professionals and Wall Street. Businesses such as law firms, real estate agencies, executive recruiters, retailers of luxury items and other industries have found significant value in uncovering this public information. Once a privilege of a select few, it has now become a necessity for many.

Greg D. Adams is CFO of EDGAR Online, Inc. Visit the company website at www.edgar-online.com, call 800.416.6651 or email him at [e-mail].

EDGAR[R] is a federally registered trademark of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Filings Included in CategoryFORM'S:
Filing Category
Annual Reports                      10-K     10-KSB (Small Business)
Quarterly Reports                   10-Q     6-K
IPO Filings                         S-1      SB-1
Insider Trading                     3        4
Ownership                           13-F     13-G
Mergers & Acguisitions              S-4      14D-1
Secondary Stock Offerings           S-2      F-2
Mutual Fund Filings                 N-1A     N-30D
Proxies and Information Statements  DEF-14A
Special Events (Reg FD)             8-K      10-C
Filing Category
Annual Reports
Quarterly Reports                   0QSB (Small Business)
IPO Filings                         SB-2
Insider Trading                     4
Ownership                           13-DF
Mergers & Acguisitions              14D-9
Secondary Stock Offerings           S-3
Mutual Fund Filings                 497
Proxies and Information Statements
Special Events (Reg FD)             6-K
Filing Category
Annual Reports
Quarterly Reports
IPO Filings                         F-1 (Foreign)  424B
Insider Trading                     144
Ownership
Mergers & Acguisitions
Secondary Stock Offerings           F-3
Mutual Fund Filings
Proxies and Information Statements
Special Events (Reg FD)
(*)See www.edgar-online.com/
formdef.asp for additional
information.
Users                    SEC Information
Financial Executives     Accounting research, credit risk
                         review, benchmarking, compensation,
                         M&A activities
Financial Institutions,
Brokerages               People searches for insider
                         buying/selling activity, individual
                         wealth data, institutional holding
Law Firm                 Corporate legal proceedings,
                         judgments, risk factors
Manufacturing            Equipment lease information,
                         capital expenditure plans
Real Estate              Corporate leasing information
                         Wealth data from individual
                         stock holdings
Executive Search         Leads/Names of executives in
                         specific industries/companies,
                         Compensation metrics