Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Corp Fin Publishes Foreign Company Data


The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance has published data on foreign companies. The data present a snapshot of 965 foreign companies registered and reporting with the Commission, as of December 31, 2011. Markets covered in the reports include: New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex LLC (renamed NYSE MKT LLC as of May 14, 2012), NYSE Arca Inc., Nasdaq Global Stock Market, Nasdaq Capital Market, and Over-the-Counter Market. One document contains an alphabetical list of companies and their respective countries and markets. Companies also are listed by geographic location (country of incorporation).

A market summary shows the number of firms per market within each country. A summary ranks countries in order from most to fewest firms. Overall, the top five countries are: (1) Canada (340), (2) Cayman Islands (134), (3) Israel (71), (4) British Virgin Islands (53), and (5) Marshall Islands (32). As for markets, NYSE (396) was first by a significant margin, followed by OTC (237) and Global Market (206). The fewest companies were listed with NYSE Amex/Arca (71) and Capital Market (55). The top five Euro Zone countries are: (1) Netherlands (19), (2) France (9), (3) Ireland (8), (4) Luxembourg (7), and (5) Germany (6). The United Kingdom had 30 companies, while Japan had 23 firms. BRICs countries accounted for 53 total firms: Brazil (27), India (13), China (11), and Russia (2). Firms located in BRICs countries overwhelmingly were listed on NYSE.