Invest Skeptically

Last week’s post was about searching for US SEC filings on US companies. Today’s post provides the equivalent Canadian information. Public filings for Canadian companies can be found using the search database tool on the SEDAR website. The website is not as user-friendly as the EDGAR site because the filings aren’t coded by form number. For example, information that may be found in an SEC 8-K filing might show up on the SEDAR website as “News Release”, “Material Change Report”, or “Other”. “Other” seems to catch many different filings as I’ve found quarterly reports hidden in them. At any rate, following last week’s format, here are some of the common filings using what I believe to be the common document type descriptions.

• Audited (Annual) Financial Statements: Annual report.
• Interim Financial Statements: Quarterly report.
• News Release.
• Material Change Report
• (Management) Information Circular: The annual proxy circular. Use this to find out information on officers and directors, their shareholdings, and shareholders that hold more than 10% of the company’s stock. Note that the line here is 10% and not 5% as in the US.
• Insiders and >10% shareholders must file their transactions within 10 days. Note that this is different than the US SEC Form 4 for insiders that has to be electronically filed within 2 business days. The Canadian insider filings can viewed at the SEDI website under “Access public filings”.