Project Darcy Day Five

Highlights

 * BP seems to have undergone a big structural change around the end of 2013, with several new incorporations. Unfortunately, most of these haven't had to publish their annual accounts yet...


 * we found a 68-page long list of 2,500 seperate BP subsidiaries, published in 2010

SEC filings

 * Searching the SEC database for BP documents (10-k, EX-21, 20-F, S-1, S-4, S-11, F-1, F-4, 10). First 40 entries did not list any of these documents. Most of the documents are not up to date.


 * other experiments to get SEC filings have been more successful: for example, you can find SEC filings for those companies, that are listed on NYSE (i.e. BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust). These files are also downloadable as doc/xml: http://secfilings.nyse.com/files.php?symbol=BPT

NZ registry

 * New Zealand database 'Companies Office' lists a lot of up to date and informative documents. Research shows first results. In particular: search by shareholders. Other than BP Energy Asia Pte Limited, there seems to be no entry for BP affiliates, that are registered outside NZ though. Also, the registry is very user-friendly and has potential for automisations...


 * questions around NZ: is BP actually producing there? And is BP operating other projects (in Pacific region) from NZ?

Canadian registry

 * First attempt at searching the Canadian SEDAR database was without any results. No entries of BP.

UK registry

 * after problems with the Companies House website yesterday, we are back in the mining business... still the no.1 source


 * however, there are some unclarities left: i.e. in a Castrol Limited AA we came across the distinction of a) "Subsidiary Undertakings" and b) "Associated Undertakings". First interpretation: Subsidiaries are those entities, that are controlled/ owned by the parent through a minimum amount of shares (let's say 51%). However, in category a) you find a subsidiary owned by 44%, while under "associated" there is one owned by 50%. So where is the difference?