Form F-8 Files Dataset

The Form F-8 Files Dataset is a per-accession archive of every Form F-8 and Form F-8/A registration statement filed on EDGAR by eligible Canadian issuers under the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS). One record corresponds to one EDGAR accession — an initial F-8 covering securities issued as consideration in an exchange offer, amalgamation, plan of arrangement, or other business combination, or an F-8/A amendment to such a registration. Each record materialises as a folder containing a normalised metadata.json and every document attached to the submission (Canadian-style prospectus, financial statements, consents, Form F-X cover, and other exhibits), with raster image binaries omitted. The dataset is delivered as monthly ZIP containers and covers electronic MJDS filings from April 2002 forward, when mandatory EDGAR filing for foreign private issuers was phased in.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset is a complete EDGAR-derived corpus of Form F-8 and Form F-8/A registration statements submitted by MJDS-eligible Canadian issuers. Form F-8 is a short-form Securities Act of 1933 registration statement used by eligible Canadian issuers to register securities offered as consideration in exchange offers or business combinations such as mergers, amalgamations, plans of arrangement, or analogous transactions. Eligibility is anchored in MJDS: the registrant must be incorporated under the laws of Canada or a Canadian province or territory, listed on a recognised Canadian stock exchange, and subject to Canadian continuous-disclosure requirements. Because the form relies on Canadian disclosure, the substantive content of the registration statement is largely a Canadian prospectus or take-over bid circular wrapped for SEC filing rather than a freshly composed Securities Act prospectus. Form F-8/A is the amendment variant, used to correct, supplement, or update a previously filed F-8 before or after effectiveness.

The dataset covers the entire population of electronically filed F-8 and F-8/A submissions from April 2002 forward, distributed as ZIP containers organised by filing month. Each container holds HTML, JSON, and TXT files for the filings accepted in that month. Pre-EDGAR paper-era F-8 filings from the 1990s are not part of the electronic record set captured here.

Content Structure of a Single Record

What one record represents

One record is a single Form F-8 or Form F-8/A registration statement as submitted to EDGAR, materialised on disk as a per-accession folder containing one normalised metadata.json plus every document attached to that submission, with raster image binaries omitted. The EDGAR accession number is the unit of identity: each record corresponds to exactly one accession, whether that accession is an initial F-8 registration or an F-8/A amendment.

Container layout

The dataset is delivered as monthly ZIP archives keyed by filing month. Inside each archive, every accession is materialised as one folder named after the EDGAR accession number with dashes stripped (for example 0000919574-18-008125 becomes 000091957418008125). Each accession folder contains exactly one metadata.json and the document files that constituted the original EDGAR submission, minus images. A typical folder looks like:

          1
          2018-12/
        

          2
            000091957418008125/
        

          3
              metadata.json
        

          4
              d8116569_8-a.htm
        

          5
              [additional exhibits as separate .htm or .txt files]
        

Minimal filings reduce to metadata.json plus a single primary HTML document. Fuller submissions, particularly initial F-8 registrations carrying the full prospectus, transaction description, financial statements, consents, and the Form F-X exhibit, contain several additional document files alongside the primary registration HTML.

metadata.json structure

metadata.json is a normalised JSON projection of EDGAR's filing-index data for the accession. Top-level scalar fields are:

• formType — "F-8" or "F-8/A".
• accessionNo — dash-formatted EDGAR accession number (e.g. "0000919574-18-008125").
• filedAt — ISO 8601 acceptance timestamp with EDGAR's timezone offset (e.g. "2018-12-21T17:37:30-05:00").
• description — EDGAR's human-readable form description; amendments append [Amend].
• linkToFilingDetails — URL of the primary document on sec.gov.
• linkToHtml — URL of the EDGAR filing-index HTML page.
• linkToTxt — URL of the full submission .txt wrapper on EDGAR.
• linkToXbrl — URL of the XBRL instance when present; an empty string for F-8 records.
• id — stable internal record identifier.

Three array fields carry the structured content of the submission.

documentFormatFiles[]

An ordered list of every document attached as a document-format file (the prospectus body, exhibits, and the full submission text wrapper). Each element provides:

• sequence — EDGAR exhibit sequence number; the primary document is "1" and exhibits increment from there. The full submission text file carries a blank sequence.
• type — form or exhibit type label, e.g. "F-8", "F-8/A", "EX-99.1", "F-X".
• documentUrl — absolute URL on sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/....
• size — byte size as a string.
• description — optional free-text label supplied by the filer or assigned by EDGAR (for example "Complete submission text file" for the submission wrapper).

entities[]

One entry per filer or co-registrant on the submission. Multi-party filings, common where both the acquiror and target appear or where co-registrants of guaranteed securities are listed, produce multiple rows. Per-entity fields are companyName (with the EDGAR role suffix appended in parentheses, e.g. "(Filer)"), zero-padded cik, irsNo (zeros when not supplied), fileNo (the SEC-assigned 333-series file number tying together the registration and any amendments), filmNo (EDGAR's per-acceptance film number), type (form type recorded for that entity), act ("33" for the Securities Act of 1933), sic (four-digit code with industry description appended), stateOfIncorporation (EDGAR's two-character state/country code; Canadian provinces typically appear as A0–A9), fiscalYearEnd as MMDD, and a tickers array.

dataFiles[]

A parallel array reserved for structured data files (XBRL instances, schemas, calculation/label/presentation linkbases, R-files). It is empty for F-8 and F-8/A records, since the form is not within the scope of EDGAR's XBRL mandates.

seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[]

An array reserved for the series-and-classes/contracts metadata used by registered investment company filings. It is empty for F-8 records but remains present for cross-dataset schema uniformity.

Primary document anatomy

Each document file is delivered as EDGAR stored it: the body (HTML or plain text) preceded by EDGAR's <DOCUMENT> header tags. The header carries <TYPE> (mirroring documentFormatFiles[].type), <SEQUENCE> (the same sequence number), <FILENAME> (on-disk filename), and an optional <DESCRIPTION>, followed by <TEXT> opening the payload and </TEXT></DOCUMENT> closing it:

          1
          <DOCUMENT>
        

          2
          <TYPE>F-8/A
        

          3
          <SEQUENCE>1
        

          4
          <FILENAME>d8116569_8-a.htm
        

          5
          <TEXT>
        

          6
          <html>... HTML body of the registration statement ...</html>
        

          7
          </TEXT>
        

          8
          </DOCUMENT>
        

The HTML payload of the primary F-8 or F-8/A document is the substantive registration statement. Because the form operates under MJDS, that body is structured around Canadian disclosure rather than Regulation S-K item-by-item content. A typical primary document contains:

• A facing page identifying the registrant, the securities being registered, the transaction, the calculation of the registration fee, and any U.S. agent for service of process.
• The Canadian prospectus or take-over bid circular prepared under Canadian securities-law disclosure standards, which is the principal disclosure document delivered to shareholders.
• A description of the transaction giving rise to the registration, including consideration, exchange ratios, conditions, and timetable.
• Risk factors and information concerning the registrant and, where applicable, the target of the offer or combination, presented to Canadian disclosure norms.
• Financial statements of the registrant and, where required, of the target or pro forma combined entity, prepared under Canadian GAAP or IFRS as permitted by MJDS, with auditor's reports.
• Tax disclosure (Canadian and, where included, U.S. federal income tax considerations relevant to U.S. holders).
• Legal opinions, undertakings, and signatures.

Exhibits

Exhibits are broken out as additional document-format files within the same accession. Recurring categories include consents of independent auditors and other experts whose reports or opinions are referenced or reproduced in the prospectus; the underlying agreement or plan governing the business combination; opinions of counsel; and Form F-X, the appointment of agent for service of process required of foreign private issuers under MJDS. Form F-X is a separate cover form that recurs as a near-universal companion exhibit in F-8 records, though it can also be filed under its own accession number rather than as an F-8 exhibit.

Included content

Each accession record includes metadata.json and every document EDGAR catalogues in documentFormatFiles[] as actual on-disk files, except raster image binaries (GIF, JPG, PNG, etc.). The full submission text wrapper where present, the primary F-8 or F-8/A HTML body, and all exhibit documents (consents, agreements, F-X, opinions, exhibit cover pages) are present as .htm, .html, or .txt files, each still bearing its EDGAR <DOCUMENT> header. metadata.json lists every document by URL, type, sequence, and size, so the inventory of the original submission remains fully recoverable even when image-only attachments are not on disk.

Excluded or separate content

Image files referenced from inside the prospectus or exhibits, such as corporate logos, scanned signature pages, and charts saved as raster, are excluded from the accession folder. Their absence does not affect the textual prospectus, transaction description, financial statements, or exhibit text, but image-only artefacts (for instance scanned consent letters) cannot be reconstructed from the dataset alone. XBRL data files do not apply to this form type, leaving dataFiles[] empty and linkToXbrl blank. Correspondence files, EDGAR cover letters, and other non-document-format artefacts are not part of documentFormatFiles[] and therefore not part of the record. Related but separately accessioned filings — a standalone Form F-X submission, or any subsequent F-8/A amendments — are distinct records under their own accession numbers; they share the SEC 333-series fileNo exposed in entities[].fileNo, which is the natural key for grouping an initial F-8 with all of its amendments and related filings.

F-8 versus F-8/A

The two form types share an identical record shape and differ only in formType, in the EDGAR description (amendments append [Amend]), and in their relationship to the SEC file number. An F-8/A always points back to a previously filed F-8 under the same fileNo, and successive amendments to a single registration can be reassembled by grouping records on entities[].fileNo. The substantive document content of an F-8/A may range from a complete restated prospectus to a narrowly targeted amendment touching only specific exhibits (for example a refiled consent or an updated financial statement); documentFormatFiles[] reflects whichever scope the filer chose, and an F-8/A cannot be assumed to be a full re-filing without inspecting the document set.

Interpretation notes

• Because the form relies on incorporation by reference to Canadian disclosure documents, parts of the substantive disclosure may live in materials filed with Canadian regulators (commonly on SEDAR/SEDAR+) rather than inside the EDGAR submission, and those referenced materials are not part of the dataset.
• The EDGAR <DOCUMENT> header must be stripped before the inner HTML can be parsed cleanly. When document-level provenance matters, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, and <DESCRIPTION> should be read from the document header rather than from metadata.json alone.
• Multi-party combinations may register securities of more than one issuer in a single accession; entities[] should be treated as a list, and the registrant of record for fee or cover-page purposes is not necessarily the sole entry.
• An F-8/A does not repackage the prior submission's documents. Reconstructing the full disclosure record requires traversing all accessions that share the same fileNo.
• The omission of image files means signature pages and other scanned-only artefacts are not bit-identical to the EDGAR original, although the textual content of the registration statement is fully preserved.
• accessionNo, cik, and fileNo are the stable keys for joining F-8 records across SEC datasets; description, tickers, and sic are EDGAR-supplied free-text or coded values useful for routing and indexing but not as canonical legal identifiers.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Each record represents a single EDGAR submission of Form F-8 or Form F-8/A by an eligible Canadian issuer registering securities under the Securities Act of 1933. The filer is the Canadian issuer itself — the offeror or the surviving/continuing entity in a business combination — not the target, not the security holders being solicited, and not any U.S. affiliate. Each accession number represents one registration event: an initial F-8 covering securities to be issued in a specific exchange offer or combination, or an F-8/A amending such a registration before completion.

Who can file: MJDS-eligible Canadian issuers

Form F-8 is one of the registration statements created by the U.S./Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS), adopted in 1991, which lets qualifying Canadian issuers register with the SEC using disclosure documents prepared under Canadian rules.

Under the General Instructions to Form F-8, the registrant must, at the time of filing:

• be incorporated or organized under the laws of Canada or any Canadian province or territory;
• have a class of securities listed on a Canadian stock exchange specified for MJDS use (notably the Toronto Stock Exchange);
• have been subject to Canadian continuous-disclosure requirements for at least 36 calendar months and be currently in compliance; and
• meet the public float threshold (historically CDN$75 million in equity held by non-affiliates), with relief in certain combination contexts where the offeror's securities are themselves the subject of registration.

In practice this confines F-8 filers to senior Canadian public companies — typically large TSX-listed issuers — using the MJDS to extend a Canadian-law-compliant exchange offer or plan of arrangement into the United States without preparing a separate U.S.-style prospectus.

Triggering event: an exchange offer or business combination

An F-8 registration is event-driven, not periodic. The record exists because the eligible Canadian issuer is issuing its securities as consideration in a transaction covered by the form:

• a stock-for-stock exchange offer (a Canadian take-over bid in which the offeror's shares are the consideration);
• a statutory amalgamation under Canadian corporate law;
• a plan of arrangement approved by a Canadian court; or
• another business combination in which the Canadian issuer issues securities to target security holders.

The filing is triggered when the transaction will be extended to U.S. resident security holders, bringing the issuance within the registration requirements of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933. Form F-8 is the registration vehicle the issuer uses to satisfy that requirement under the MJDS.

Timing

An F-8 must be on file before the offering or combination is commenced or extended into the United States:

• For an exchange take-over bid, the F-8 is filed contemporaneously with commencement of the Canadian bid, because the Canadian rules drive the offer timetable and U.S. registration must be in place when U.S. holders are solicited.
• For an amalgamation or court-approved plan of arrangement, the F-8 is filed before the management information circular is mailed to U.S. holders, so that registered securities can be delivered at closing.

There is no periodic cadence. An issuer may file one F-8 for a single acquisition, several over time for discrete combinations, or none at all.

Form F-8/A amendments

F-8/A records are amendments filed by the same Canadian issuer that filed the underlying F-8. They are used to reflect changes in the terms of the offer or combination (revised exchange ratio, extended expiration, increased consideration), incorporate later-dated Canadian disclosure documents (notices of variation, bid circular supplements, updated financials), respond to SEC staff comments, update exhibits, or change the number or class of securities being registered. An amendment is required when a material change between initial filing and completion would render the original disclosure materially inaccurate or incomplete — paralleling the Canadian obligation to issue notices of variation or supplements under provincial take-over bid and prospectus rules.

Form F-X is a related but separate filing

Because the registrant is a non-U.S. issuer, it must also file Form F-X appointing a U.S. agent for service of process in connection with the registered offering. Form F-X is required by Rule 489 under the Securities Act and is submitted as a distinct EDGAR filing referenced by the F-8. Form F-X submissions are not part of this dataset, but their existence is a precondition for an effective F-8.

Distinctions from neighboring filer populations

Several categories that look superficially similar fall outside the F-8 dataset:

• U.S. domestic issuers registering securities in mergers or exchange offers use Form S-4.
• Foreign private issuers that are not MJDS-eligible — including Canadian issuers that fail the listing, reporting-history, or float tests, and all non-Canadian foreign private issuers — use Form F-4 for business combinations and exchange offers.
• MJDS-eligible Canadian issuers conducting primary capital raises use Form F-10 (general offerings) or Form F-7 (rights offerings); Form F-9 historically covered investment-grade debt and preferred securities.
• Canadian issuers making cash-only take-over bids to U.S. holders use the MJDS tender offer schedules (Schedule 13E-4F and Schedule 14D-1F) rather than registering anything on Form F-8, because no securities are being issued.
• Targets of an F-8 exchange offer do not file the F-8. An MJDS-eligible Canadian target recommending against the bid would file a directors' circular under Canadian rules and may file an MJDS response form with the SEC, but it is not the F-8 registrant.

The filer behind every F-8 record is the Canadian acquirer or combination party itself, acting as an MJDS-eligible registrant under the Securities Act of 1933, at the moment its securities are about to be offered to U.S. holders in a specific corporate transaction.

Historical reach

The MJDS was adopted in 1991 and Form F-8 has been available to eligible Canadian issuers since then; pre-EDGAR F-8 filings exist in paper form for 1990s transactions. Mandatory electronic filing of MJDS forms on EDGAR was phased in for foreign private issuers in the early 2000s, and dataset coverage begins in April 2002, consistent with that mandate. Earlier paper-era F-8 filings are not part of the electronic record set captured here.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form F-8 sits at the intersection of three regimes: the U.S.-Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System (MJDS), Securities Act registration of business-combination consideration securities, and foreign private issuer filings. The closest comparison targets fall into three groups: other MJDS forms (F-7, F-9, F-10, F-80), U.S. business-combination registration forms (F-4, S-4, F-1), and the surrounding tender-offer, process, and communications filings (F-X, Schedule TO, Schedule 14D-9, Form 425, DEFM14A).

Closest related MJDS forms

Form F-80. Same transaction scope as F-8 (exchange offers and business combinations under MJDS, Canadian prospectus disclosure, accompanied by F-X). The single dimension of difference is eligibility tier: F-8 requires the registrant to meet the higher MJDS public-float and reporting-history threshold; F-80 covers the same transactions for issuers qualifying under a lower tier. Exhibit sets and prospectus structure are otherwise near-identical, making F-80 the most direct complement dataset.

Form F-10. MJDS long-form registration for any securities offering (primary cash, secondary, shelf takedowns) by an eligible Canadian issuer. Differs from F-8 on transaction type: F-10 is general-purpose registration; F-8 is restricted to securities issued as consideration in an exchange offer, merger, amalgamation, or plan of arrangement. F-10 filings lack the target-company information and combination mechanics that define an F-8 prospectus.

Form F-7. MJDS form for rights offerings to existing security holders of an eligible Canadian issuer. Same disclosure regime as F-8, but the trigger is a pro-rata distribution to existing holders rather than consideration delivered to a target's shareholders. No target financials or combination terms.

Form F-9. Historical MJDS form for investment-grade non-convertible debt; rescinded by the SEC in 2012. Differs from F-8 on both transaction type and instrument (debt vs. consideration equity in a combination). Listed only for completeness of the MJDS family; not a substitute dataset.

U.S. analogues for business-combination registration

Form F-4. The closest U.S. functional analogue: Securities Act registration by foreign private issuers for business combinations, exchange offers, and reclassifications. Same transaction trigger as F-8. Differs on disclosure regime and review intensity: F-4 requires U.S.-style item-by-item Regulation S-K disclosure and full SEC review; F-8 wraps a Canadian-prepared prospectus with limited U.S. wrap content and receives lighter MJDS review. For an MJDS-eligible Canadian issuer, F-8 and F-4 are filing alternatives for the same economic deal; non-MJDS foreign issuers can use only F-4.

Form S-4. Same transaction triggers as F-4/F-8, but the registrant is a U.S. domestic issuer. No filer overlap with F-8 (which requires Canadian incorporation). S-4 produces U.S.-style joint proxy/prospectus content, no F-X, no Canadian prospectus, and a different exhibit set centered on the merger agreement and fairness/tax opinions.

Form F-1. Generic Securities Act registration for foreign private issuers, used primarily for IPOs and primary offerings outside MJDS. Differs from F-8 on transaction specificity: F-1 is a company-level offering registration with full Regulation S-K narrative, not deal-specific. Rarely appears in the same transaction file as F-8.

Process, tender-offer, and communications filings

Form F-X. Not a registration statement: an appointment of agent for service of process filed by foreign issuers. Differs from F-8 on regulatory layer — F-X provides the jurisdictional service-of-process hook MJDS requires; F-8 carries the registration content. F-X almost always accompanies an F-8 (often as an exhibit) but contains no transaction or prospectus disclosure on its own.

Schedule TO and Schedule 14D-9. Schedule TO is the bidder's Williams Act tender-offer disclosure; Schedule 14D-9 is the target's response. Differs from F-8 on statutory layer: TO and 14D-9 satisfy Exchange Act tender-offer rules; F-8 registers the consideration securities under the Securities Act. In an MJDS exchange offer, F-8 typically runs in parallel with a TO (sometimes filed jointly) and a target 14D-9. Neither schedule registers securities; F-8 does not satisfy tender-offer disclosure obligations.

Form 425. Captures written deal communications (press releases, investor decks, transcripts) filed under Securities Act Rule 425 / Exchange Act Rule 14a-12 during a business combination. Differs from F-8 on document function: 425 is ongoing prospectus-eligible communications around the deal; F-8 is the registration statement itself. A single F-8 transaction often generates many 425 filings over its pendency.

DEFM14A. Definitive merger proxy used when shareholder approval is solicited via U.S. proxy rules. Differs from F-8 on regulatory pathway: DEFM14A is an Exchange Act proxy solicitation, not a Securities Act registration. A Canadian plan of arrangement requiring shareholder approval typically uses a Canadian information circular delivered through the F-8 prospectus rather than a U.S. DEFM14A.

Boundary summary

F-8 is uniquely defined by the conjunction of three constraints: (1) MJDS-eligible Canadian registrant at the higher eligibility tier, (2) Securities Act registration trigger limited to exchange offers and business combinations, and (3) reliance on a Canadian-prepared prospectus plus F-X rather than U.S.-style Regulation S-K disclosure. Each adjacent dataset relaxes exactly one of these: F-80 (lower eligibility tier), F-10 (broader transaction type), F-7 (rights instead of combination), F-4 (U.S.-style disclosure), S-4 (domestic registrant), F-1 (non-deal-specific), F-X (process layer only), Schedule TO/14D-9 (tender-offer layer, not registration), Form 425 (deal communications), DEFM14A (proxy solicitation). F-8 should be treated as the authoritative MJDS source for top-tier Canadian cross-border combination consideration registrations, with the others used as complements for adjacent slices of the same transactions.

Who Uses This Dataset

Form F-8 is a narrow MJDS registration filed by eligible Canadian issuers for exchange offers, amalgamations, and plans of arrangement. Volume is low, but the records are content-dense: a Canadian-style prospectus, financial statements exhibit, Form F-X agent-for-service appointment, consents, and an F-8/A amendment chain tied together by cik, accessionNo, fileNo, formType, and filedAt.

Cross-border M&A and securities lawyers

US counsel running MJDS exchange offers pull the prospectus and exhibit index as a precedent set: deal-mechanics language, minimum tender and take-up provisions, lock-up and support agreements, and the Form F-X appointment-of-agent template. Canadian counsel drafting the prospectus reuse arrangement-mechanics, tax disclosure, and continuous disclosure incorporation-by-reference paragraphs. Both groups walk the F-8 to F-8/A chain via formType and filedAt to identify which prospectus version governed at effectiveness, and use cover-page recitations to confirm MJDS eligibility (Canadian incorporation, recognized-exchange listing, reporting history).

Cross-border M&A bankers

Deal teams at investment dealers running Canadian exchange offers and arrangements use the dataset for structuring precedent and comparable-transaction work. They extract exchange ratios, collars, cash-election features, and dissenters' treatment from the prospectus deal-terms section; pull pro forma capitalization and goodwill from the financial statements exhibit; and map advisory mandates from the fairness opinion and financial-advisor consent exhibits. Output: pitch-book precedents, fairness-opinion comp tables, and structuring memos.

Merger arbitrage and event-driven desks

Arb desks trading Canadian deal stocks read the prospectus for consideration, walk-away rights, regulatory conditions, and outside dates; monitor F-8/A amendments for term changes, expiry extensions, and revised financials that move the spread; and time-stamp progress with filedAt. The acquirer's financial statements exhibit feeds stock-component stress tests on probability-weighted closing models.

In-house securities compliance at Canadian issuers

Regulatory affairs and securities-compliance teams at frequent Canadian acquirers use prior F-8 filings (their own and peers') as a self-precedent library when prepping a new MJDS deal. They benchmark the prospectus structure, validate Form F-X signing conventions, and inventory the standard exhibit set (auditor and counsel consents, fairness opinion, lock-up and support agreements) for the filing checklist handed to outside counsel and auditors.

Equity research analysts on Canadian dual-listed issuers

During a deal window, analysts treat the F-8 prospectus and financial statements exhibit as richer disclosure than the issuer's 40-F or 6-K stream: segment reconciliations, pro forma combined statements, contingent liabilities, lock-ups, and post-closing governance. They key off cik and filedAt to slot disclosures into existing models around announcement and close.

Quantitative and academic researchers

Researchers studying MJDS usage, cross-border deal flow, and arbitrage spreads use the dataset as a structured population of MJDS exchange-offer registrations. They join cik, accessionNo, and fileNo to broader EDGAR panels and Canadian regulator identifiers; parse the prospectus to extract consideration type, exchange ratio, and conditionality; and use the F-8/A history to test how disclosure revisions correlate with completion. Coverage from April 2002 supports long-horizon work on MJDS friction and registration cost.

Financial data engineers

Engineering teams at regulatory-tech and investment-data vendors index F-8 records into broader EDGAR coverage. They rely on the metadata.json keys (cik, accessionNo, formType, filedAt, fileNo, filer name) for entity and filing identity, route the prospectus, financial statements, and Form F-X exhibits into separate extraction pipelines, and use the formType F-8/F-8/A split to maintain amendment chains in deal-tracker products.

LLM and RAG developers

Teams building retrieval systems for cross-border deal research use the F-8 corpus as a small, self-contained evaluation set: the prospectus, deal-terms section, financial statements, and Form F-X exhibit give clean grounding for tuning extraction of consideration terms, eligibility recitations, and exhibit lists.

Specific Use Cases

The Form F-8 corpus supports a set of concrete workflows anchored to the actual record contents — Canadian-style prospectus, financial statements exhibit, Form F-X, consents, and metadata.json with cik, accessionNo, fileNo, formType, and filedAt.

Building an MJDS exchange-offer precedent library for outside counsel

Cross-border M&A lawyers preparing a new Canadian plan of arrangement or take-over bid pull the primary F-8 HTML body and the F-X exhibit across prior accessions, then group amendments by shared entities[].fileNo to recover the version that was effective at closing. They lift minimum-tender conditions, lock-up and support-agreement language, U.S. agent-for-service recitations, and tax-disclosure paragraphs into a clause bank keyed by cik and filedAt, and confirm MJDS eligibility by reading the cover-page recitations on the primary document.

Tracking deal-term amendments for merger-arbitrage spread models

Event-driven desks ingest every formType = "F-8/A" record, diff the deal-mechanics section of the amended prospectus against the prior accession on the same fileNo, and flag changes to exchange ratio, collar, cash-election cap, outside date, or financing condition. Each amendment is timestamped via filedAt and joined to intraday quotes for the acquirer ticker (from entities[].tickers) so that revised consideration feeds directly into probability-weighted spread models without manual prospectus reading.

Extracting structured deal-term tables for league-table and comp work

M&A bankers parse the prospectus deal-terms section and the cover-page fee table from the primary F-8 document to populate a comparable-transactions table: consideration mix, exchange ratio, implied premium, dissenters' rights treatment, and break-fee. The financial-advisor consent exhibits and fairness-opinion exhibit listed in documentFormatFiles[] are mapped to advisory mandates by filer, producing a Canadian-MJDS league table that complements F-4 and S-4 coverage.

Pro forma capitalization and goodwill extraction from the financial statements exhibit

Equity analysts and transaction-services teams target the exhibit identified in documentFormatFiles[] as the financial statements package and the pro forma combined statements embedded in the prospectus body. They extract pro forma share count, post-closing capitalization, purchase-price allocation, and goodwill, joined to the acquirer cik so the figures slot into existing models at announcement and at each F-8/A revision.

Filing-checklist and exhibit-inventory generation for in-house Canadian issuers

Securities-compliance teams at frequent Canadian acquirers iterate over their own historical accessions for a given cik, read documentFormatFiles[] to inventory the standard exhibit set (auditor consents, counsel opinions, F-X, lock-up and support agreements, fairness opinion), and produce a filing checklist that outside counsel and auditors work against. The Form F-X document is reused directly as the signing-convention template for the next deal.

Schema-stable ingestion into deal-tracker and RAG products

Data engineers index every record using accessionNo as primary key, cik and fileNo as the join keys to broader EDGAR panels and to Canadian regulator identifiers, and the formType F-8 vs. F-8/A split to maintain an amendment chain per registration. The primary HTML, financial statements exhibit, and F-X exhibit are routed into separate extraction pipelines (deal terms, financial figures, jurisdictional metadata), with the EDGAR <DOCUMENT> header stripped before HTML parsing. The same partitioning supports RAG evaluation sets where consideration terms, eligibility recitations, and exhibit lists are the grounded targets.

Dataset Access

The dataset is available through three access paths. The full dataset and individual container downloads require an API key, passed as a token query parameter or via the standard authentication method described in the SEC API documentation.

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f8-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset metadata (name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total records, total size, covered form types F-8 and F-8/A, container format, and file types) along with the full container index. Each container entry includes its key, size, record count, last updated timestamp, and direct download URL. This endpoint does not require an API key. Poll it to detect which monthly containers were refreshed in the most recent run and download only the changed ones.

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6a1d-af28-7d7b84a077d2",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f8-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form F-8 Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:28:13.226Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "2002-04-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 528,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 9518043,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["F-8", "F-8/A"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

          11
            "fileTypes": ["HTML", "JSON", "TXT"],
        

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f8-files/2026/2026-03.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2026/2026-03.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 184320,
        

          17
                "records": 3,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:28:13.226Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f8-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads the full archive containing every Form F-8 and F-8/A filing since April 2002. The archive is organized into monthly ZIP containers grouped by year (for example 2024/2024-07.zip), with each container holding the HTML, JSON, and TXT files for filings made in that month. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-f8-files/2026/2026-03.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads one monthly container, keyed by YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip. This is the pattern used by the sec-api.io download script, which iterates over container keys returned by the index API and fetches each ZIP individually. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What forms does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form F-8 and Form F-8/A — the MJDS short-form Securities Act registration statement used by eligible Canadian issuers for exchange offers and business combinations, and its amendment variant. No other MJDS or Securities Act registration forms are included.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record is a single EDGAR accession — either an initial F-8 registration or an F-8/A amendment — materialised on disk as a per-accession folder containing one normalised metadata.json plus every document attached to that submission, with raster image binaries omitted.

Who is required to file Form F-8?

The filer is always the eligible Canadian issuer itself (the offeror or the surviving/continuing entity in a business combination), incorporated under the laws of Canada or a Canadian province or territory, listed on a recognised Canadian stock exchange, subject to Canadian continuous-disclosure requirements for at least 36 months, and meeting the MJDS public-float threshold. Targets, security holders, and U.S. affiliates do not file the F-8.

When is an F-8 filed?

F-8 filings are event-driven, not periodic. An issuer files an F-8 when it is about to issue securities as consideration in a specific exchange offer, statutory amalgamation, court-approved plan of arrangement, or other business combination extended to U.S. resident security holders, and files an F-8/A whenever a material change to the offer or combination requires the original disclosure to be updated.

What time period does the dataset cover?

Coverage begins in April 2002, when mandatory electronic filing of MJDS forms on EDGAR was phased in for foreign private issuers. Earlier paper-era F-8 filings from the 1990s are not part of this electronic record set.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP containers organised by filing year and month (for example 2024/2024-07.zip). Each container holds per-accession folders containing metadata.json plus the original HTML and TXT documents from the EDGAR submission.

How does this dataset differ from Form F-4 and Form F-80?

Form F-4 covers business combinations and exchange offers by foreign private issuers under U.S.-style Regulation S-K disclosure, with full SEC review; F-8 covers the same transactions but only for MJDS-eligible Canadian issuers using a Canadian-prepared prospectus and lighter MJDS review. Form F-80 covers the same MJDS transaction scope as F-8 but for issuers qualifying under a lower MJDS eligibility tier rather than the senior-tier float and reporting-history threshold required for F-8.