What is a company?
A ‘company’ can be different things to different people.
In the eyes of national legal registries of companies, like Companies House in the UK, a company is a single legal entity on the register, with a set of associated documentation, directors, shareholders, and financials, and a single registered address.
However, a company in a practical sense is something different. It is a body of people, products, customers, IP, technology, brand(s), and more that operate as one.
This practical definition of a company can be made up of several different, but linked, legal entities. These entities may be registered in different countries, and there may be different information associated with each entity individually.
For example, a large multinational company, made up of tens or even hundreds of different legal entities, may file financials across different parts of its corporate structure; it may hold patents in multiple entities; it may receive grants across multiple entities; and so on.
This makes understanding companies challenging.
To get a complete picture of a company using traditional corporate registers– or company data providers that only provide registry information – is very difficult. You would need to look at all of the company’s legal entities individually, trawling through multiple profiles to find the information relevant to you, attempting to join up and amalgamate this information as you go.
This isn’t a useful or practical solution.
Introducing Beauhurst True Companies
At Beauhurst, we’re solving this problem with True Company profiles. These profiles show you the complete picture of a company in one place.
True Companies aggregate all the information from a company’s individual legal entities together. This means you can understand every detail of a company on a single profile – its complete financials, transactions, locations, news, and more, all in one place, for every company in the UK and Germany.
Right now these are “experimental” – they’re still under development as we work behind the scenes to perform all the technical and data wizardry required. Feel free to try them out – feedback welcome!
What about Legal Entities?
We also know that sometimes you might want to understand the legal entities that make up a True Company. Whether conducting due diligence, trying to understand a complex group structure or looking for a specific filed document – legal entities have their uses too.
We’re therefore continuing to provide access to legal entity data across the UK and Germany. Not only can you see these entities on the True Company profile, you can also dig deeper with legal entity profiles and run deep legal entity searches if you choose.