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How Are Branch Offices Displayed on North Data?

An overview of how branch offices are shown in company profiles, publications, and search results.

North Data focuses on legal entities rather than operational locations. As a result, branch offices do not appear as separate company pages. Instead, branch/related information may appear within the context of the main company, depending on how official registers provide the data. 

What Is Considered a “Branch Office” on North Data?

A branch office is not a separate legal entity. It usually:

  • Has no independent legal personality
  • Is registered inconsistently across countries and registers
  • Often has incomplete, outdated, or unclear data
  • May or may not have its own register number
  • Can represent anything from a real office to a purely formal registration

Because of this, branch office data is structurally different from company (legal entity) data.

These entries often reflect:

  • Registrations in another country
  • Mandatory foreign registrations (e.g. for tax or real estate purposes)
  • Administrative filings required by local authorities

Example

AIG Europe S.A., Niederlassung Frankfurt

  • The legal entity is AIG Europe SA, Luxemburg
  • The Frankfurt office is a branch, not a separate company
  • It may appear in German registers, but it does not form a new legal entity

On North Data, this branch is treated as contextual information about AIG Europe S.A., not as its own company. This company has other branches in Norway, France, Monaco and United Kingdom as well.

How Are Branch Offices Shown on the North Data Website?

Branch-related information may appear in company profiles, publications, or timeline entries, in the following ways: 

1. In the company’s identification section

It appears under the 'Identification' section a shown below. By clicking on it you are led to the relevant publication.

2. In the 'History' section of the main company

Entries related to branch offices or foreign registrations may also appear in the company’s timeline (history) as can be seen.

3. In publications and official filings

By clicking on the register number of the branch under identification section or the branch entry on the timeline history, you are led to the branch related publication. In the above-mentioned case, here is the publication link.

North Data displays these documents as publications linked to the parent company.

4. In addresses (limited and selective)

Branch addresses are not consistently shown under the “Addresses” section because:

  • Registers do not reliably distinguish between main seats, branches, and temporary locations
  • Address changes and branch openings are often mixed in the source data
  • Treating all addresses equally would create misleading histories

As a result, not every branch address will appear as a structured address entry.

Why Don’t Branch Offices Have Separate Pages?

This is a deliberate product decision, based on data quality and user clarity.

Creating separate pages for branch offices would introduce major issues:

  • No consistent definition of what a branch office is
  • No reliable way to keep branch data up to date
  • High risk of incorrect or misleading information
  • Confusion between legal entities and operational locations
  • Increased complaints instead of better transparency

North Data is a company search engine, not a register-entry search engine. Separate branch pages would blur that distinction.

Why Search Results May Not Show Branch Offices Directly?

When you search on North Data:

  • Search results prioritize legal entities
  • Branch offices are usually not indexed as standalone results
  • Searching by a branch name often returns the main company

This prevents users from mistakenly assuming that a branch is a separate company.

How to Find a Branch Office Using Search?

Even though branch offices don’t have their own pages, you can still find relevant information:

Recommended approaches

1. Search for the main company

Then review:

  • Register history
  • Publications
  • Timeline entries

Example
Search: “RaceOn GmbH”
→ Review the history for foreign registrations or branch-related entries

 2. Search by register number

If a branch-related registration number is known, searching by it often leads back to the main company.

Example
Searching a German HRB number associated with a branch (Hessen Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main HRB 112611)
→ Opens the parent company page where the entry appears in context.

3. Use publications as the authoritative source

Publications often contain the most precise wording.

Example
A publication may clearly state:

“Zweigniederlassung unter gleicher Firma”

This wording clarifies the relationship better than structured data ever could.