Doing due diligence on a Canadian company?
The System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) is the Canadian version of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR). This free Canadian Securities Administration (CSA) database contains most public securities documents filed with Canada’s thirteen provincial and territorial authorities.
SEDAR is a critical resource when conducting due diligence investigations for clients seeking to invest in Canadian enterprises. Similar to the U.S., Canadian companies are required to file financial information, including annual reports, financial statements, and news releases. These types of documents tend to include other information that may be valuable to your investigation, such as company addresses or names of main executives.
Searching for legal documents filed by Manulife Balanced Income Private Trust (MBIPT) turned up hundreds of filings, accessible as PDFs, such as Interim Financial Statements, the Final Annual Information Form, and Management Report of Fund performance. When you click on a PDF link, a pop-up window appears in which you have to agree to SEDAR’s Terms of Use.
The site also provides Issuer Profiles for all companies and investment fund groups registered with the CSA. If you would like more information on the Manulife Balanced Income Private Trust, for example, you click on the “M” in the Investment Fund box, which brings you to all Manulife funds. Scroll down the list and click on MBIPT, a new page will open, containing the date the fund was formed, type of fund, the auditing firm, and links to the fund’s legal documents and group profile—including contact information.
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