Writing a company overview is like taking a snapshot of a business at a specific point in time. This activity is performed in virtually every project: in fact, the business and market overviews generally make up the front sections of any report, after the disclaimer and the executive summary. Your partner or director may also request a couple of overview slides before meeting with the company's management to win new business.
As a junior, preparing company overviews will be one of your main day-to-day activities, in addition to writing up market overviews and searching for comps. However boring you may consider these activities to be, you must conduct them with extra care, as they constitute the foundations of any project: f*cking them up can mean finding yourself in embarrassing situations with your team or, worse, with your client. Sometimes, it may even be hard to recover from them.
Let's look at how to write up and present a proper company overview.
What to Search For
Here's our list of what to include in a company overview:
1. Company Description
Year of establishment
Headquarters location
No. corporate offices/branches (where relevant)
Geographical presence (the countries/regions where the company offers its products/services)
No. employees
For listed companies, year of listing and name of stock exchange(s)
2. Timeline with Relevant Events and Milestones
Establishment
Launch of new products/services
New market entry (new foreign markets, or new business sectors)
Acquisition of a competitor, sale of a subsidiary, changes in the shareholding structure, and other M&A-related events
Company name change(s)
Prizes and acknowledgments (where relevant)
Listing (where relevant)
3. Ownership Structure
Shareholder names and the % equity stake held in the company by each
4. Group Structure
Names of subsidiaries, associates, affiliates, JVs and other related companies, and % effective equity stake held by the parent company in each
5. Business Description
Key products/services
Key clients
Geographical presence
Current market share and positioning vs. competitors
6. Key Management and Directors
CEO or equivalent
CFO or equivalent
Chairman
Vice Chairman
Other members of the leadership team
7. Key financials of the last 3 years
Income statement and key ratios
Balance sheet and key ratios
Cash flow statement and key ratios (for non-financial corporations)
Notes on the historical evolution of key items
8. Trading Analysis (if listed)
Evolution of the company's stock price and traded volume over the desired period of time (e.g. last 12 months)
Rebased evolution of the company's stock price performance vs. the relevant stock market index
Where to Search
Here are the common sources and the main documents to refer to:
1. Company description
Corporate website, at the 'About us', 'History', 'Investor relations' and 'Key management' sections
Annual and interim financial reports
Corporate presentations
Stock exchange website
2. Timeline with Relevant Events and Milestones
Corporate website, at the 'About us' and 'History' sections
Annual and interim financial reports
Corporate presentations
Official press releases
Mergermarket or similar
3 & 4. Ownership & Group Structure
Annual and interim financial reports
Stock exchange website (for listed companies)
Stock market regulatory authority website (generally provides up-to-date shareholdings for listed companies)
5. Business Description
Corporate website, at the 'About us' and 'History' sections
Annual and interim financial reports
Corporate presentations
Official press releases
Industry research reports
Analyst reports
NB: analyst reports are downloadable from Thomson ONE, or from the Bloomberg Terminal through the function 'BRC'
6. Key Management and Directors
Corporate website, at the 'Key management' section
Annual and interim financial reports
7. Key financials of the last 3 years
Annual and interim financial reports
Bloomberg Terminal or similar
Analyst reports
8. Trading Analysis (if listed)
Bloomberg Terminal or similar
Stock exchange website
How to Present
Consider the following as a general rule (but feel free to customise as needed):
Slide 1: company description, business description, key management, and ownership and group structures
Slide 2: company history
Slide 3: income statement and notes
Slide 4: balance sheet and notes
Slide 5: cash flow statement and notes
Slide 6: trading analysis.
Here are the most effective ways to present the company information on PowerPoint slides:
1. Company Description
Use iconography instead of bullet points to present key company information (e.g. use the icon of a building when talking about the company headquarters, or the icon of a group of people when talking about the number of employees)
2. Timeline with Relevant Events and Milestones
Present the company's history using either a vertical or horizontal arrow
Only show the relevant years on the arrow
Add call-outs with a brief description of key events and highlights above and below the arrow
3. Ownership Structure
Present the company's ownership structure as either a pie chart (as shown in our Excel template) or an org chart
Show the % equity stakes in the pie's slices or on the org chart's arrows
When using a pie chart, use the doughnut chart and add a text box in the empty center to show the total equity as at the reference date (as shown in our Excel template)
4. Group Structure
Present the group structure as an org chart
Show the % effective equity stakes on the org chart's arrows
If the group and ownership structures are straightforward, you may combine the two org charts into one
NB: for dynamic org charts that refresh automatically, download the Excel add-in 'Microsoft Visio Data Visualizer'.
5. Business Description
Present key products graphically by using their logos (if allowed by your risk team)
Present key clients graphically by using their logos (if allowed by your risk team)
Show the location of the company offices/branches using pins on a map
Show the ranking of the top 10/20 players by market share using a 2D clustered bar chart, showing the market leader at the top, and adding the cumulative market share in a separate column to the right-hand-side of the chart
6. Key Management and Directors
Present the key people in table format (do not include their photographs on your slides, unless the client requests it)
7. Key financials of the last 3 years
Present the financial statements of the last 3 years and relevant ratios in table format (as shown in our Excel template)
Add brief comments on the historical evolution of key items next to each statement using bullet points or call-outs
8. Trading Analysis (if listed)
Use a combo graph (clustered column + line on secondary axis) to present the evolution of the company's stock price and traded volume over the selected period of time (as shown in our Excel template)
Use a 2D line graph to present the rebased evolution of the company's stock price performance vs. the relevant stock market index (as shown in our Excel template)
We hope you found this article useful. Make sure to download our Excel template:
The template includes the following tabs:
'KeyInfo' - fill out our tables with the key company data.
'IS', 'BS' and 'CF' - update the tabs with the company's financial statements of the last 3 years. Formula-linked key ratios are included under each statement.
'TradingAnalysis' (for listed companies) - update our tables with the company's share price and traded volume, and the reference index's value over the selected historical period.
Once you have updated the template's input cells, remember to change their fill color from grey to 'No fill' before pasting the tables to PowerPoint.
For clarifications, feel free to reach out. Thanks for reading, and good luck!