If you are in business and you want to know if a company or person is worth investing in, or in fact you might want them to invest in your company, the only way to ensure correct information about their circumstances is to check companies house entries. This will show their curent directorships and whether their company has filed its tax returns at the correct time, if at all. It should reflect all the information required as a first step. The information listed under companies house is all public and the register is available to anyone wishing to view it. There is no way of remaining private. Once someone takes shares in a company, whether that is at the inception or after incororation and become known as a ‘member’ of that company. This information has to be entered on the company return to the government annually. The basic information that must be provided is full name/s of the individual together with service address. Now this latter item is only for official correspondence; private addresses are not listed. Also it is only required if the person becomes a shareholder of a private company whilst it is being formed; or if they are holding shares in a public company. Other information needed is the type of shareholding; there are divisions here in the way of class, quantity, currency and the nominal value of those shares. There is no requirement for someone who becomes a shareholder after the company has begun trading and is incorporated to provide their service address to companies house.