Retrieve a paginated list of companies.

When to use this tool: Use as the first step to resolve a company name, ticker, or partial match to a FinancialFilings internal ID. Required before calling any per-company tool (financials, filings, watchlist). CONFIRM the match — state the resolved company's full name and country before reporting data ("Apple" can surface "Apple Hospitality REIT"). PEER / SCREENING LISTS: include ONLY companies whose requested data you actually retrieved this session; if a candidate's data comes back empty, mark it "no data available" or drop it — never invent a figure to complete the list. A short honest list beats a long fabricated one.

When NOT to use this tool: Don't use if you already have a company ID from a previous call. Don't use for ISIN lookups — use isins_retrieve instead.

Examples:

• Find Apple -> search="Apple" (Inspect results — 'Apple Inc.' vs 'Apple Hospitality REIT')

• German automotive companies -> countries="DE", sector="C" (ISIC Section C = Manufacturing)

[Server current date: 2026-10-09 — treat this as today.]