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Definitions Used in D&B - Dun's Financial Records (Dialog File 519)

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This documentation provides definitions for terms used in creation of the Dun's Financial Records (File 519) database on Dialog.

Organizational Terms

• Parent–A corporation with more than 50% of the voting stock of another corporation (the subsidiary).



• Subsidiary–Any corporation with more than 50% of its voting stock owned by another corporation (the parent).



• Headquarters–The main office of a company. Implies the existence of a branch or branches reporting to it.



• Branch–A secondary location of a company reporting to a main office called headquarters. Branches carry the same name as their headquarters and can report only to them. Branch locations are not included in File 519.



• Single location–A business in which all operations are performed out of one physical location. A single location business cannot have branches reporting to it, but may be a parent or subsidiary.

The History/Operations text of many company records explains the organizational relationships in greater detail.

Financial Data

Records containing financial data can be isolated using the /FINANCIAL or /FISCAL limits. If a customer displays a record in full format, Format 15, without limiting the set and expects to find financial data, and the record does not contain financials, pricing defaults to a lower rate based on the data present in the record.

Records that contain financials have at least one financial statement; this may be a fiscal statement or an interim statement, reflecting the most recent three, six, or nine months of information available. A maximum of three statements may be included. Only data from the latest statement is searchable.

• Display of financials in records. The records include 4 columns for display of financials: 1) Company, 2) % Change, 3) Company %, and 4) Indst Norm %.



• Company. The Company column displays the company's actual financial statement figures.



• % Change. The % Change column displays the percentage change for each financial figure from the previous year's statement. Negative values are shown in parentheses.



• Company %. The Company % column displays the individual balance sheet figures for the company computed as a percentage of total assets and the individual profit/loss figures for the company computed as a percentage of total sales.



• Indust Norm %. The Indust Norm % column displays the same measure as the Company % column, balance sheet figures as a percentage of total assets and profit/loss figures as a percentage of total sales, calculated as an average for the industry of which the company of record is a part. The industry is a sampling of companies based on comparable line of business, geographic location, and asset range. The number of companies used to determine the industry norms is shown in the record.

Ratios

Ratio data provided in Dun & Bradstreet records is given in 3 columns: 1) Company, 2) % Change, and 3) Industry Quartiles (Upper, Median, Lower).

• Company. The Company column displays the ratio for the company.



• % Change. The % Change shows the percentage change of the ratio for the company as compared to the previous year.



• Industry Quartiles. The Industry Quartiles are based on the industry sample described above for the Indst Norm %. The Median figure is the middle figure when the ratios for each company in the industry are lined up from high to low. The Upper figure is the ratio halfway between the median and the top ratio, while the lower figure is the ratio halfway between the median and the bottom ratio.

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