Companies House

Companies House is the official registrar of companies for the United Kingdom. Think of it as the ultimate public library for UK corporate life, run as a government executive agency. Its primary job is to incorporate new limited companies, dissolve those that have run their course, and, most importantly for investors, to keep a detailed, publicly accessible record of every company's information. For decades, this information was cumbersome to access, but today, its digital service provides a free-to-access treasure trove of documents. This transparency makes Companies House an indispensable first stop for anyone conducting due diligence on a UK-based business, whether it's a giant public corporation or a small private firm. For the meticulous value investor, it's a source of raw, unfiltered data straight from the source—a crucial tool for separating investment fact from market fiction.

The Companies House digital service is a goldmine of primary source documents. When you look up a company, you gain access to its entire filing history, often going back decades. This allows you to build a comprehensive picture of its past and present. Key documents you can typically download for free include:

• Incorporation Documents: The original paperwork, or 'birth certificate', of the company.
• Annual Accounts: The yearly financial report card. For most companies, this includes the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and often a cash flow statement. This is where you dig into the numbers.
• Confirmation Statement: (Previously known as the annual return). This is a yearly snapshot confirming key details like the registered office address, the directors, and the shareholders (though for larger companies, shareholder lists can be long and complex).
• Officer Filings: Records of every time a director or company secretary is appointed, resigns, or has their details changed.
• Capital Filings: Any changes to the company's share structure.
• Charges: Details of any mortgage charges or other secured loans taken out by the company. This shows you who they owe money to and which assets are pledged as collateral.
• Insolvency and Dissolution: All the paperwork related to a company entering insolvency or being struck off the register, providing a full post-mortem.

For followers of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, who preach the gospel of independent research, Companies House is nothing short of a superpower. It allows you to bypass the polished narratives of company press releases and analyst reports and get straight to the facts.

The information on Companies House is the official record. There's no marketing spin. When a company files its accounts, those are the accounts. This direct access to raw data is fundamental to value investing, which relies on objective analysis rather than popular opinion. You get to be the analyst, forming your own conclusions from the evidence.

Are you thinking of investing in a small-cap UK stock? Or perhaps lending money to a private business? Companies House is where your investigation begins.

• Financial Health: You can analyse years of financial statements to assess profitability, debt levels, and cash generation. Is the story consistent over time?
• Management Quality: You can look up the directors' history. Have they been directors of previously failed companies? A quick search can reveal a track record of success or a pattern of liquidations.

Careful study of a company's filing history can reveal numerous red flags that might warn you of trouble ahead.

• Late Filings: Companies are legally required to file their accounts by a certain deadline. Consistently filing late is a classic sign of internal chaos or a business struggling to stay afloat.
• Auditor Changes: A sudden or frequent change of auditors can sometimes indicate disagreements over accounting practices.
• Growing Debt: A sudden increase in the number of mortgage charges filed can signal that the company is taking on significant debt, potentially over-leveraging its assets.

Complex companies often operate through a web of related entities. By reviewing filings, you can map out the relationships between a parent company and its subsidiaries, helping you understand where the real value and risks lie within a corporate group.

American investors will be familiar with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its EDGAR database. While both serve a purpose of corporate transparency, there's a crucial difference:

• SEC's EDGAR: Primarily focuses on publicly traded companies—those whose shares are listed on exchanges like the NYSE or NASDAQ.
• Companies House: Covers every registered limited company in the UK, from Barclays Bank Plc down to the local one-person IT consultancy operating as a limited company.

This gives UK-focused investors unparalleled insight into the private sector, which is often opaque in other countries. The ability to scrutinise the financials of a key private supplier or competitor to a public company you own is a unique analytical edge.

The best way to understand the power of Companies House is to use it. Go to the website and play detective. Look up a company you admire, a company you're sceptical of, or even a local business you use (if it's a limited company). Download their accounts and their latest confirmation statement. See who the directors are and check their financial pulse. This hands-on experience is the first step in learning to read the story that the numbers and filings tell—a foundational skill for any serious investor.