Nevada Corporations Historical Data

September 11, 2004
By Richard Smith

In the event that you would like to find the historical data of most corporations in America you simply need take yourself off to a place of public records and review the publicly available information that corporations are normally required to file. Piecing the information together, you can create a historical record. However, in the case of Nevada corporations, historical data is far more difficult to ascertain. The reason for this is two-fold, and fairly straightforward. Nevada corporations are not required to file information in the same manner as other American corporations are. And, Nevada state corporate privacy laws pretty much prohibit any investigation of entities incorporated in the state. As it happens, these are also two of the principal reasons why corporations incorporate themselves in the state.

With this in mind then, how would one go about creating historical data on a Nevada corporation? The answer to this is with extreme difficult. In part this is due to the corporate privacy laws. On the other hand, the problems that you would face here have as much to do with the fact that Nevada state law not only does not require corporations to file annual records, beyond an up-to-date list of officers and directors, which are required to be filed with the Secretary of State, as with the fact that the state also accepts the twin concepts of nominee stockholders and bearer stockholder certificates.

In short, unless you have inside information, creating historical data on Nevada corporations is practically impossible. And herein lies the problem, in the event that you are the principal stockholder of a Nevada corporation, taking your corporation to market – as part of an Initial Public Offering – would be near impossibly; after all, you have no historical data to substantiate any claims you may wish to make in any offering circular!