Form PRES14C Files Dataset

The Form PRES14C Files Dataset is a complete EDGAR archive of preliminary information statements filed under Regulation 14C pursuant to Section 14(c) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, covering special-meeting and written-consent disclosures from February 1995 to the present. Each record is a single PRES14C accession — one preliminary information statement filing — materialized as an accession-level folder that bundles a structured metadata.json descriptor together with every non-image document from the original EDGAR submission. The underlying form is filed by Exchange Act reporting issuers at least ten calendar days before the corresponding definitive information statement (DEF 14C) is sent to shareholders, giving the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance a window to review disclosure for actions already approved (or about to be approved) by majority written consent rather than a solicited vote. The dataset is partitioned into monthly ZIP containers and distributed with TXT, JSON, and HTML file types.

Update Frequency
Daily
Updated at
2026-04-15
Earliest Sample Date
1995-02-01
Total Size
3.2 MB
Total Records
131
Container Format
ZIP
Content Types
TXT, JSON, HTML
Form Types
PRES14C

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Dataset Files

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What This Dataset Contains

The dataset materializes every Form PRES14C accession EDGAR has accepted since the phased EDGAR mandate took effect in February 1995. PRES14C is a preliminary information statement filed under Regulation 14C pursuant to Section 14(c) of the Exchange Act. It gives the SEC staff at least ten calendar days to review disclosure relating to corporate matters that will be acted upon at a special meeting of security holders — or by written consent in lieu of one — before the corresponding definitive information statement (DEF 14C) is sent to shareholders. Information statements differ from proxy statements in that no proxies are being solicited; they are used when the outcome of the corporate action is already determined, typically because the requisite consent has been obtained from majority or controlling holders, and the issuer is satisfying its disclosure obligation rather than seeking votes. The "PRES" prefix marks the preliminary version filed for staff review, and the "S" inside the form code distinguishes the special-meeting variant from PRE 14C, the annual-meeting variant.

The dataset is partitioned into monthly ZIP containers along the path pattern form-pres14c-files/<YYYY>/<YYYY-MM>.zip. Inside each ZIP, a <YYYY-MM>/ root holds one subfolder per filing, named with the 18-digit dash-stripped accession number (for example, accession 0000870786-02-000071 becomes 000087078602000071/). Distributed file types are TXT, JSON, and HTML; image binaries from the original submissions are excluded. The substantive content of each filing follows the disclosure schema set out in Schedule 14C, which incorporates by cross-reference the relevant items of Schedule 14A. Pre-EDGAR paper Schedule 14C filings going back to the 1964 Securities Acts Amendments are not included.

Content Structure of a Single Record

A single record consists of two complementary layers: a structured metadata layer and a document-content layer.

metadata.json (filing-level descriptor)

metadata.json is a single JSON object (not an array) capturing filing-header attributes lifted from EDGAR. The fields carry the following information:

  • formType — fixed at "PRES14C" for every record in this dataset.
  • accessionNo — the canonical dashed accession number (for example, "0000870786-02-000071"); the same number, dash-stripped, names the enclosing folder.
  • id — a stable internal hex identifier for the record.
  • filedAt — the EDGAR filing timestamp with timezone offset.
  • periodOfReport — typically the date of the special meeting or the period-of-report date supplied on the filing header.
  • description — the EDGAR form-level description (for example, "Form PRES14C - Preliminary information statements, special meeting").
  • linkToFilingDetails, linkToTxt, linkToHtml — URLs back to the primary document, the full SGML submission text, and the EDGAR -index.htm filing index page on sec.gov.
  • linkToXbrl — empty; PRES14C is not an XBRL-bearing form.
  • documentFormatFiles — an array, with one entry per document attached to the original submission. Each entry carries sequence, size (bytes, encoded as a string), documentUrl, description, and type. A "Complete submission text file" entry (the SGML aggregate) is also typically present, with a blank sequence and a type consisting of a single space.
  • dataFiles — an empty array for PRES14C.
  • entities — an array of filer/subject-entity blocks. Each block carries cik (zero-padded to ten digits), companyName with an EDGAR role suffix in parentheses such as (Filer) or (Subject), type (the form-type tag for the entity), act (governing act number — 34 for the Exchange Act), fileNo (EDGAR file number; 811- prefixes denote Investment Company Act registrants), filmNo, fiscalYearEnd (MMDD), and stateOfIncorporation.

The entities array typically holds a single filer entry but may include additional entries when subject companies, parents, or co-filers are part of the submission.

Document content

Alongside metadata.json, the accession folder contains every non-image document from the original EDGAR submission, preserved under its original issuer-supplied filenames (for example, schedule14cinfo.txt, registrant-named .htm/.html files, or numerically named exhibits). Each document is wrapped in the EDGAR SGML envelope:

1 <DOCUMENT>
2 <TYPE>PRES14C
3 <SEQUENCE>1
4 <FILENAME>schedule14cinfo.txt
5 <DESCRIPTION>...
6 <TEXT>
7 ... document body ...
8 </TEXT>
9 </DOCUMENT>

The header tags expose the document's role in the submission: <TYPE> carries values such as PRES14C for the primary document or EX-99 and similar for exhibits; <SEQUENCE> orders the documents; <FILENAME> and <DESCRIPTION> describe the file. The wrapper is identical whether the body is plain text or HTML — only the content between <TEXT> and </TEXT> differs. Older submissions place ASCII narrative inside <TEXT>, with <PAGE> markers separating logical pages of the underlying paginated document and tabular content rendered in fixed-width characters; later submissions place HTML markup there.

Section-by-section content of the document body

Once the SGML envelope is unwrapped, a typical PRES14C primary document presents the following content blocks in order:

  1. Schedule 14C cover header. The "SCHEDULE 14C INFORMATION" title, the Section 14(c) citation, the "(Amendment No. )" placeholder, and the Preliminary/Confidential/Definitive checkbox group with Preliminary marked. The registrant is identified "As Specified In Charter," followed by the payment-of-filing-fee section selecting the fee-computation basis.
  2. Notice of special meeting. A "NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS" block giving the date, time, place, and purpose of the meeting, often signed in name by the corporate secretary.
  3. Information statement narrative. Identification of the record date, the number and class of voting securities outstanding and entitled to act, the voting mechanics (frequently a statement that the requisite consent has already been obtained from majority or controlling holders and that no further vote is being solicited), and an explicit "WE ARE NOT ASKING YOU FOR A PROXY" disclosure.
  4. Item-level disclosure for each matter to be acted upon. A description of each proposal — articles or bylaw amendments, mergers or reorganizations, fund-level changes for investment companies, recapitalizations, name changes, going-private transactions, and similar — followed by the disclosures required by the Schedule 14A items incorporated through Schedule 14C: interests of officers and directors in the matter, dissenters' or appraisal rights where applicable, financial statements or pro forma data when material, descriptions of securities to be issued or modified, beneficial ownership tables, and Rule 13e-3 disclosures for going-private transactions.
  5. Operative document text. The full text of the proposed charter or bylaw amendment, plan of reorganization, merger or share-exchange agreement, certificate, or other instrument, normally either inserted in-line at the end of the narrative or attached as an annex/exhibit.
  6. Signatures and exhibit attachments. A closing signature block by the registrant's authorized officer, followed by any exhibits referenced in the body. Each exhibit travels as its own <DOCUMENT> block in the SGML submission, with its own <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, and <DESCRIPTION>, and a corresponding entry in documentFormatFiles[].

Included content

Each record includes the structured metadata.json descriptor and every non-image document from the original EDGAR submission: the primary PRES14C document, any cover correspondence, and exhibits such as proxy or consent cards, charter amendments, plans of merger or reorganization, fairness opinions, and supplemental financial schedules. Document filenames, sequence numbers, types, and per-document descriptions are preserved through both the SGML wrapper tags and the corresponding documentFormatFiles[] entries. Both narrative ASCII text and HTML markup are retained verbatim inside the <TEXT> envelope.

Excluded or separate content

Image binaries (graphics, logos, scanned signature pages, embedded charts) are excluded from the dataset, even when they were part of the original EDGAR submission. There is no XBRL or structured-financial layer for PRES14C; linkToXbrl is empty and dataFiles is an empty array. Filings of related forms — DEF 14C (definitive information statement), PRE 14C (preliminary annual-meeting information statement), PRER14C and DEFR14C (revised preliminary and definitive information statements), and the proxy-statement equivalents under Regulation 14A (PRE 14A, DEF 14A, PRES14A, and the like) — are not part of this dataset; only the PRES14C accession itself is materialized, even when it is one stage in a longer filing chain.

Variation across records

The shape of the record is stable, but several dimensions vary across accessions:

  • Document encoding. Primary documents may be plain .txt (SGML-wrapped ASCII, common in the late 1990s and early 2000s) or .htm/.html (predominant from the mid-2000s onward). Filenames are issuer-supplied and preserved.
  • Document count. An accession may consist of a single primary document or of a primary PRES14C document plus several exhibits — cover letters, consent or proxy cards, charter amendments, merger agreements, fairness opinions, and supplemental financial schedules — each occupying its own <DOCUMENT> block and its own documentFormatFiles[] entry.
  • Entities. The entities[] array typically contains a single (Filer) entry but can include additional (Subject), parent, or co-filer entries on transactions involving multiple registrants.
  • Registrant type. Registered investment companies (file numbers prefixed 811-) typically file PRES14C for fund reorganizations, advisory-contract approvals, fundamental investment policy changes, and trustee elections. Operating-company filings cluster around charter amendments, capital restructurings, going-private transactions under Rule 13e-3, and reverse stock splits.

Format evolution over time

The dataset spans February 1995 to the present, and the document layer reflects the standard EDGAR format evolution across that span. Early-era submissions are plain ASCII inside the SGML <DOCUMENT> wrapper, with <PAGE> markers preserving the logical pagination of the underlying paper document and tabular content rendered in fixed-width characters. From the late 1990s onward, registrants increasingly filed HTML inside the same SGML wrapper, and HTML has been the dominant body format from the 2010s on. The wrapper itself — the <DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, and <TEXT> tags — has remained stable across the entire period, so the parsing surface is consistent even as the body content moved from ASCII to HTML.

The substantive disclosure schema for Schedule 14C has likewise remained largely stable in structure, with periodic SEC rulemakings refining cross-referenced Schedule 14A items (for example, expanded disclosure on going-private transactions under Rule 13e-3, executive compensation, and beneficial ownership). These refinements alter the content of specific item-level sections rather than the macro-anatomy of the filing, so the record's outer shape — header, notice, narrative, operative text, exhibits — is durable across the dataset's coverage.

Interpretation and extraction notes

Several nuances matter for downstream use of the Form PRES14C Files dataset:

  • SGML unwrapping. The <TEXT> body must be unwrapped from the surrounding SGML tags before content extraction; tag detection should be tolerant of whitespace and case variation across vintages.
  • <PAGE> markers. In older ASCII bodies, <PAGE> markers are not part of the disclosure content and should be stripped or used only to reconstruct page boundaries.
  • Heterogeneous body content. Because PRES14C filings frequently embed the operative legal instrument (merger agreement, articles amendment, plan of reorganization) in-line or as an annex, extraction should treat the document body as potentially mixed — narrative disclosure, formal legal text, and tabular financial data can appear within one logical filing.
  • Preliminary-only scope. Each record models the preliminary statement only. Tracking the eventual outcome requires following the chain to the corresponding DEF 14C (or PRER14C, where the preliminary was revised) accession via CIK and periodOfReport; later versions of the same disclosure are not present in this dataset.
  • Amendments. Revisions to a preliminary information statement are filed under PRER14C and are not included here unless they themselves carry the PRES14C type tag.
  • Entity role suffixes. The EDGAR role suffix attached to each companyName ((Filer), (Subject), etc.) is content-bearing and should not be stripped during entity-name normalization.
  • Investment-company indicator. A fileNo beginning with 811- flags the filer as an Investment Company Act registrant, which strongly predicts the matter being acted on (fund reorganization, advisory-contract change, fundamental policy amendment) and is useful for downstream segmentation.
  • size typing. Per-document size values in documentFormatFiles[] are byte counts encoded as strings and require numeric conversion before arithmetic.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files

Each record in the dataset is a single Form PRES14C submission to EDGAR: a preliminary information statement filed by an Exchange Act reporting issuer in advance of a special meeting of security holders, or in lieu of a meeting where the matter is being effected by written consent. The filer is always the registrant itself.

The eligible filer population is issuers with a class of securities registered under Section 12(b) or Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to Section 14(c) for the action in question. In practice the dataset is dominated by:

  • closely held public registrants whose controlling holder already has the votes to approve the action,
  • shell companies and former operating companies executing reverse mergers, name changes, recapitalizations, share increases, or splits via majority written consent,
  • small-cap operating companies amending their charter, authorizing or reverse-splitting stock, electing directors, or adopting equity plans without soliciting public holders.

The defining feature of a Section 14(c) filer is that it is not soliciting proxies, consents, or authorizations from holders for the matter. An issuer that solicits files instead under Regulation 14A (PRE 14A / DEF 14A, or PREM14A / DEFM14A for transactions). Foreign private issuers are excused from Regulation 14C by Rule 3a12-3 and do not appear here. Registered investment companies almost always use Schedule 14A, so their presence in this dataset is rare.

What triggers the filing

A PRES14C is required when an Exchange Act registrant will take corporate action that, under state law, its charter or bylaws, or its listing rules, must be submitted to security holders, and the registrant either:

  1. has already obtained the necessary approval by written consent of holders of a majority (or other required percentage) of the voting power and is informing the non-consenting holders, or
  2. will hold a special meeting where consent is pre-secured by a controlling holder, with no proxy solicitation from the public float.

Typical actions disclosed include charter and bylaw amendments, name changes, increases or decreases in authorized capital, forward and reverse stock splits, reincorporations and entity conversions, director designations, mergers and asset sales (where not severe enough to require PREM14C), going-private transactions, dissolutions, and equity plan adoptions or amendments. Substantive disclosure is governed by Schedule 14C (Rule 14c-101), which incorporates most Item content from Schedule 14A.

Regulatory hook

Form PRES14C is filed under Regulation 14C (Rules 14c-1 through 14c-101), implementing Section 14(c) of the Exchange Act of 1934. Section 14(c) prohibits any Section 12 issuer from acting on a matter at a holder meeting (or by consent) without delivering information substantially equivalent to a Section 14(a) proxy statement when it is not soliciting proxies. The key operative rules are:

  • Rule 14c-2 — duty to disseminate the information statement to holders entitled to vote or consent.
  • Rule 14c-5 — filing requirements for preliminary and definitive copies with the Commission.
  • Schedule 14C (Rule 14c-101) — required content, largely cross-referenced to Schedule 14A.

The ten-calendar-day pre-dissemination rule

Under Rule 14c-5(d)(1), preliminary copies of the information statement must be filed with the Commission at least ten calendar days before the definitive information statement is first sent or given to security holders. The ten-day window exists so the Division of Corporation Finance can review and, if needed, comment on the disclosure before it goes out to holders. As on the proxy side (Rule 14a-6(a)), preliminary filing is not required for filings limited to the election of directors or other narrowly enumerated matters; those issuers go straight to a definitive DEF 14C.

In addition, Rule 14c-2(b) prohibits effecting the corporate action until at least twenty calendar days after the definitive information statement is sent or given to holders.

Typical filing chain

For a single corporate action, the chain looks like:

  • PRES14C filed — staff review window opens (this dataset).
  • Optional staff comments, addressed via PRER14C amendments.
  • DEF 14C filed and mailed to holders.
  • Twenty-day waiting period under Rule 14c-2(b).
  • Action becomes effective.

Merger, acquisition, and similar transactions move through the parallel PREM14C / DEFM14C chain and are not part of this dataset.

Important distinctions

  • PRES14C vs. PRE 14A. Turns entirely on solicitation. Already-obtained majority consent or no proxy ask: 14C. Asking holders to vote, sign a proxy, or return a consent card: 14A.
  • PRES14C vs. PREM14C. PRES14C covers special-meeting or written-consent matters that are not merger, acquisition, or similar Item 14-type transactions. PREM14C is the preliminary form for those business combinations.
  • PRES14C vs. PRE 14C. The "S" denotes the special-meeting / special-action variant. PRE 14C is used for annual-meeting or general preliminary information statements.
  • PRER14C vs. DEFR14C. PRER14C amends a preliminary filing; DEFR14C amends a definitive filing.
  • Filer vs. persons disclosed. The registrant is the only filer. Consenting controlling shareholders, designee directors, transaction counterparties, and 5% beneficial owners are subjects of disclosure inside the statement, not filers of it.
  • No-meeting consent filings. A large share of PRES14C records describe actions already taken by majority written consent in lieu of a meeting; the form then functions as the Section 14(c) notice to the non-consenting holders rather than as notice of an upcoming vote.
  • Earliest record. The dataset begins in February 1995, tracking the phased EDGAR mandate. Pre-EDGAR paper Schedule 14C filings going back to the 1964 Securities Acts Amendments are not included.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form PRES14C sits inside a tight cluster of shareholder-meeting disclosures under Sections 14(a) and 14(c) of the Exchange Act. Its identity is defined by the intersection of four axes: no-solicitation (14C, not 14A), preliminary (not definitive), special meeting or written consent (not annual), and ordinary corporate matters (not merger or going-private). Each closely related filing type relaxes exactly one of those constraints.

PRE 14C — Preliminary Information Statement (annual / general). Same regime, same disclosure architecture, same ten-day pre-mailing review window. The only nominal difference is meeting type: PRE 14C is for annual or general meetings, PRES14C is for special meetings or written consents in lieu of one. EDGAR form-type selection between the two is not strictly enforced, so any population study of preliminary 14C activity should query both codes and segment by meeting type from the document text rather than the form code.

DEF 14C — Definitive Information Statement. The downstream version of PRES14C: filed after the staff review window closes and any comments are resolved, then mailed to shareholders. Same matters, finalized form. Most PRES14C filings are followed by a DEF 14C from the same registrant within roughly 10–30 days. Use PRES14C to study disclosure as initially drafted and staff-review triggers; use DEF 14C to study what shareholders actually received.

PREM14C / DEFM14C — Merger Information Statements (preliminary / definitive). Same Reg 14C regime, but reserved for Rule 13e-3 transactions, mergers, consolidations, sales of substantially all assets, and similar control transactions. These filings carry fairness opinions, transaction agreements, and going-private disclosures that PRES14C does not. PRES14C covers special-meeting matters that are not extraordinary M&A: charter amendments, name changes, reverse splits, authorized-share increases, board reconstitutions, and similar items typically adopted by majority written consent. The boundary is subject matter, not legal regime.

PRES14A — Preliminary Proxy Statement for a Special Meeting. The direct 14A counterpart. The decisive difference is solicitation: a 14A filer is asking shareholders to vote; a 14C filer is informing shareholders of action already approved (or about to be approved) by a controlling majority. PRES14A includes proxy cards, solicitation expenses, and vote-recommendation language that PRES14C omits. PRES14C filers therefore tend to be issuers with concentrated ownership; PRES14A filers tend to be widely-held issuers seeking dispersed approval.

DEF 14A — Definitive Proxy Statement. The most likely point of confusion because it is by far the most common shareholder-meeting filing on EDGAR. PRES14C differs from DEF 14A on three axes simultaneously: preliminary vs. definitive, no-solicitation vs. solicitation, and special vs. annual. DEF 14A populations are dominated by director elections, say-on-pay, and auditor ratification — proposals that rarely appear in PRES14C.

Form 8-K, Item 5.07 — Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders. Event-driven and post-meeting, where PRES14C is pre-meeting. For matters consummated by written consent, Item 5.07 is often the only public record of the final tally and effective date. Pair PRES14C (what was proposed and why) with 8-K 5.07 (what was approved and when) for a complete special-action record. The 8-K is short and structured; PRES14C is narrative with exhibits.

Key differences at a glance

  • vs. PRE 14C: special meeting / written consent instead of annual.
  • vs. DEF 14C: preliminary, pre-staff-review draft instead of definitive mailed version.
  • vs. PRES14A: no proxies solicited; controlling-holder consent rather than dispersed vote.
  • vs. PREM14C / DEFM14C: ordinary special-meeting matters rather than merger or going-private transactions.
  • vs. DEF 14A: preliminary, no-solicitation, special-meeting — three constraints tighter.
  • vs. 8-K Item 5.07: ex ante narrative disclosure rather than ex post structured vote results.

Boundary summary

PRES14C is distinct because it occupies a single, narrow cell: preliminary, no-solicitation, special-meeting, non-merger. Each neighbor relaxes exactly one of those four constraints. Researchers should treat PRES14C and PRE 14C as a combined population for any preliminary 14C study (because filer coding is inconsistent), pair PRES14C with DEF 14C for staff-review and pre-mailing-edit analysis, and pair it with 8-K Item 5.07 for written-consent outcome tracking. Conversely, anything involving solicited proxies, definitive mailings, annual-meeting cadence, or M&A subject matter belongs to a different dataset in this family.

Who Uses This Dataset

The Form PRES14C Files dataset is consulted by a narrow set of legal, transactional, governance, and event-driven professionals whose work pivots on majority-consent corporate actions and the staff-review window before a definitive information statement is mailed.

Securities and disclosure counsel

Counsel drafting Schedule 14C statements use prior PRES14C filings as precedent for non-soliciting disclosure. They mine the corpus for tested language on consenting-holder identity and share counts, the description of action, dissenters' and appraisal-rights notices, interest of certain persons in the matter, and tax consequences. Comparing PRES14C against the corresponding DEF 14C also reveals what staff review tends to surface.

Corporate paralegals and governance operations teams

Paralegals and in-house governance staff use the filings as working templates for written-consent actions. They focus on procedural mechanics: record date, mailing date, the ten-calendar-day waiting period, the form of notice to non-consenting holders, and exhibits such as charter amendments, plans of conversion, certificates of designation, and equity-plan documents.

M&A and corporate transactional attorneys

Deal counsel reference PRES14C when a transaction is structured around controller written consent rather than a vote, including parent-subsidiary squeeze-outs, short-form mergers, holding-company reorganizations, recapitalizations, and going-private steps. Key sections are the transaction description, fairness disclosure where the controller is on both sides, treatment of minority holders, appraisal-rights notice, and the underlying agreements filed as exhibits. The ten-day waiting period drives timing covenants.

Event-driven and special-situations investors

Special-situations desks read PRES14C as an early signal of corporate actions already locked in by majority consent: going-privates, squeeze-outs, reverse splits used for deregistration, and charter amendments affecting minority economics. They focus on the action description, consideration offered, appraisal mechanics, record date, and expected effective date to size positions and assess appraisal or deregistration outcomes.

Minority-shareholder and activist counsel

Counsel for minority and dissenting holders use the filings to assess vulnerability of a controller-approved action. They concentrate on the controller's interest, related-party benefits, board and special-committee process, any fairness opinion disclosed, and appraisal-rights language, supporting demand letters, books-and-records requests, appraisal petitions, and fiduciary-duty claims.

Forensic accountants and litigation support

In appraisal and post-closing disputes, forensic accountants use PRES14C to fix the disclosure record at first filing and compare it to the DEF 14C, press releases, and later financials when isolating omitted or evolving disclosures relevant to fair value or damages.

Regulatory and academic researchers

Researchers in corporate governance and law-and-finance use the 1995-to-present archive to study how often and for what actions issuers rely on majority consent rather than a meeting. Fields of interest are the consenting holders and their voting power, the categories of actions, issuer characteristics, and any disclosed independent process. The corpus supports longitudinal work on controller-driven governance and small-cap deregistration cycles.

Comment-letter and disclosure-quality researchers

By diffing PRES14C against the corresponding DEF 14C, researchers infer the substance of staff review even before correspondence becomes public, tracking changes in risk factors, controller-relationship disclosure, fairness language, appraisal notices, and quantitative descriptions of the action.

Data engineers and RAG developers

Teams building filing libraries and retrieval systems ingest PRES14C alongside DEF 14C, PRE 14A, DEF 14A, PREM14C, and DEFM14C. The raw EDGAR documents and metadata support parsers that extract the consenting-holder table, action description, record date, and exhibits for search, classification, and grounding governance-focused LLM assistants in filed text.

Specific Use Cases

The PRES14C corpus supports a small set of operational workflows that pivot on majority-consent corporate actions, preliminary-stage disclosure, and the staff-review window before a definitive information statement is mailed.

  • Drafting non-soliciting disclosure from precedent. Securities counsel pull the primary PRES14C document and exhibits from accessions matching a target action — short-form merger, reverse split for deregistration, certificate of designation, holding-company reorganization — and reuse tested language on consenting-holder identity, appraisal-rights notice, interest of certain persons, and the "WE ARE NOT ASKING YOU FOR A PROXY" block. Filtering on entities[].fileNo prefix 811- separates investment-company precedent from operating-company precedent.

  • Reconstructing staff-review edits via PRES14C-to-DEF 14C diffs. Comment-letter and disclosure-quality researchers pair each PRES14C accession with the same registrant's subsequent DEF 14C (matched by CIK and periodOfReport) and diff the unwrapped <TEXT> bodies. The resulting deltas in fairness language, controller-relationship disclosure, appraisal mechanics, and quantitative description of the action infer the substance of staff review before correspondence files become public.

  • Early-warning screening for event-driven desks. Special-situations analysts ingest the monthly ZIPs as they land and scan new PRES14C records for keywords on going-private steps, squeeze-outs, reverse splits, and charter amendments affecting minority economics. The ten-calendar-day staff window between PRES14C filing and DEF 14C mailing gives a bounded action horizon for sizing positions, preparing appraisal demands, or shorting deregistration candidates before the definitive statement reaches holders.

  • Building a controller-consent transaction database. Researchers and litigation-support teams iterate over metadata.json across the 1995-to-present archive, extract the entities[] block, filedAt, periodOfReport, and stateOfIncorporation, and pair them with parsed action descriptions and consenting-holder share counts from the document body. The output is a longitudinal table of controller-driven actions usable for law-and-finance studies, fiduciary-duty case research, and small-cap deregistration cycle analysis.

  • Exhibit extraction for transactional document libraries. Deal paralegals harvest exhibit <DOCUMENT> blocks — charter amendments, plans of conversion, merger and share-exchange agreements, certificates of designation, fairness opinions — using documentFormatFiles[] entries and SGML <TYPE>/<DESCRIPTION> tags to classify each attachment. The result is a typed exhibit corpus keyed to issuer, state of incorporation, and action category.

  • Grounding governance-focused RAG systems. Data engineers index unwrapped document bodies alongside DEF 14C, PRE 14C, PREM14C, and DEFM14C, with metadata facets for formType, filer CIK, periodOfReport, and investment-company flag. Retrieval over the combined 14C corpus grounds LLM assistants answering questions on consent procedure, ten-day timing, appraisal notice form, and exhibit conventions in filed-text rather than synthesized language.

Dataset Access

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-pres14c-files.json Returns dataset metadata (name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total records, total size, form types, container format, and file types), the download URL for the full archive, and the list of monthly container files with per-container size, record count, updated timestamp, and download URL. Use this endpoint to monitor which containers were updated in the most recent refresh run and to decide which containers to download on a day by day basis. This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example
1 {
2 "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6a04-927e-52e8bddaf56f",
3 "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-pres14c-files.zip",
4 "name": "Form PRES14C Files Dataset",
5 "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T18:21:19.584Z",
6 "earliestSampleDate": "1995-02-01",
7 "totalRecords": 131,
8 "totalSize": 3168194,
9 "formTypes": ["PRES14C"],
10 "containerFormat": "ZIP",
11 "fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON", "HTML"],
12 "containers": [
13 {
14 "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-pres14c-files/2026/2026-03.zip",
15 "key": "2026/2026-03.zip",
16 "size": 13818783,
17 "records": 154,
18 "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T18:21:19.584Z"
19 }
20 ]
21 }

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-pres14c-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY Downloads the complete Form PRES14C filings archive covering February 1995 to present as a single ZIP file. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-pres14c-files/2026/2026-03.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY Downloads one monthly container ZIP instead of the full dataset, useful for incremental updates. Replace the year and month segments with the container key from the index. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form PRES14C — the preliminary information statement filed under Regulation 14C pursuant to Section 14(c) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for matters to be acted upon at a special meeting of security holders, or by written consent in lieu of a meeting. Only PRES14C accessions are materialized; related forms such as DEF 14C, PRE 14C, PRER14C, PREM14C, DEFM14C, and the Regulation 14A proxy-statement equivalents are not part of this dataset.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record is a single PRES14C accession submitted to EDGAR — one preliminary information statement filing identified by a unique SEC accession number. Each record is materialized as an accession-level folder containing a structured metadata.json descriptor and every non-image document from the original EDGAR submission, preserved under the issuer's original filenames and wrapped in the EDGAR SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope.

Who is required to file Form PRES14C?

The filer is always the registrant itself — an Exchange Act reporting issuer with a class of securities registered under Section 12(b) or 12(g), or otherwise subject to Section 14(c) for the action in question. The defining condition is that the issuer is not soliciting proxies, consents, or authorizations from holders; an issuer that solicits files instead under Regulation 14A. Foreign private issuers are excused by Rule 3a12-3, and registered investment companies almost always use Schedule 14A, so both populations are rare in this dataset.

When must a PRES14C be filed relative to mailing the definitive statement?

Under Rule 14c-5(d)(1), preliminary copies of the information statement must be filed with the Commission at least ten calendar days before the definitive information statement is first sent or given to security holders. The ten-day window exists so the Division of Corporation Finance can review and, if needed, comment on the disclosure before it goes out to holders. Rule 14c-2(b) further prohibits effecting the corporate action until at least twenty calendar days after the definitive statement is sent.

What time period does the dataset cover, and what file format is it distributed in?

The dataset covers Form PRES14C filings submitted to EDGAR from February 1995 to the present, tracking the phased EDGAR mandate; pre-EDGAR paper Schedule 14C filings are not included. It is distributed as monthly ZIP containers along the path pattern form-pres14c-files/<YYYY>/<YYYY-MM>.zip, with TXT, JSON, and HTML file types inside each container.

How does this dataset differ from the DEF 14C dataset?

PRES14C is the preliminary, pre-staff-review draft; DEF 14C is the definitive version filed after the ten-day staff review window closes and any comments are resolved, then mailed to shareholders. Most PRES14C filings are followed by a DEF 14C from the same registrant within roughly 10–30 days. Use PRES14C to study disclosure as initially drafted and to detect staff-review triggers; use DEF 14C to study what shareholders actually received.

Does this dataset include XBRL or structured financial data?

No. PRES14C is not an XBRL-bearing form — linkToXbrl in metadata.json is empty and the dataFiles array is empty for every record. The structured layer in this dataset is limited to the filing-header attributes captured in metadata.json; substantive disclosure lives in the document bodies, which appear as ASCII text inside the SGML <TEXT> envelope for older filings and as HTML inside the same envelope for later filings.