Corporate and Financial Databases

Where to find which data

Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS)

Many of the following financial databases are available via the web-based interface of WRDS. Read more on what WRDS is and how to get access.

• Access and university specific information
• WRDS Website

Aktienführer data archive

Contents: The Aktienführer data archive is an important source for historic German financial market and corporations’ data. It was published in between 1870 and 2018, including several predecessor-publications. The Aktienführer data archive contains standardised reports from German and foreign corporations, that were traded at a German stock-exchange. The reports feature information on head offices and management, operations and investments, shareholder-structure and income statements.

Available history: 1956 – 2016 (Database) and 1870 – 2016 (digitised full-text PDFs)

Access: free access within the IP-range of the University of Mannheim

Bank Focus (Bureau van Dijk and Moody's Analytics)

Contents: Bank Focus is a comprehensive database of banks worldwide, combining content from Bureau van Dijk and Moody's Investor Service. The information is sourced from a combination of annual reports, information providers and regulatory sources. Bank Focus currently contains detailed information on 44,000 banks (29,000 US and 15,000 Non-US), offering detailed, standardized reports and ratios. Its templates are regularly updated to reflect the latest accounting and regulatory disclosures. 

Help: Bank Focus user guide

Access: 

• Bank Focus (on Bureau van Dijk interface)
• via WRDS (requires registration)

COMPUSTAT Execucomp (Standard & Poor's)

Contents: Standard and Poor's Execucomp provides executive compensation data collected directly from each company's annual proxy (DEF14A SEC form). Detailed information on salary, bonus, options and stock awards, non-equity incentive plans, pensions and other compensation items are available.

Help: For more detailed information on the Execucomp files, see the documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

COMPUSTAT Global (Standard & Poor's)

Contents: COMPUSTAT Global provides authoritative financial and market data covering publicly traded companies in more than 80 countries, representing over 90% of the world's market capitalization, including coverage of over 96% of European market capitalization and 88% of Asian market capitalization. Hundreds of data items, ratios and concepts and up to 12 years of annual history is included. International data sets have been designed to reflect the varieties of actual reporting practices used across the globe, while allowing for minimal normalization and establishing consistency on an item by item basis.

Help: For more detailed information on the COMPUSTAT Global files, see the COMPUSTAT documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

COMPUSTAT North America (Standard & Poor's)

Contents: COMPUSTAT North America (from Standard & Poor's) is a database of U.S. and Canadian fundamental and market information on more than 30,000 active and inactive publicly held companies. It provides more than 300 annual and 100 quarterly data items of Income Statements, Balance Sheets, Statements of Cash Flows, and supplemental data. COMPUSTAT North America files also contain information on indices, industry segments, banks, market prices, dividends, and earnings.

Help: For more detailed information on the COMPUSTAT files, see the COMPUSTAT documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

CRSP (Center for Research in Security Prices)

Contents: CRSP maintains the most comprehensive collection of security prices, return, and volume data for the NYSE, AMEX and Nasdaq stock markets. Additional CRSP files provide stock indices, beta- and cap-based portfolio, treasury bond and risk-free rates, and mutual fund databases. University of Mannheim has currently subscribed to the CRSP stock and indices database.

Help: A detailed data description and definition guide can be obtained via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

Refinitiv Workspace (including Datastream and Worldscope, former EIKON)

Contents: Refinitiv Workspace is a comprehensive source for company and market data. Workspace contains a wealth of financial indicators, the stock market, bonds, the money and foreign exchange markets as well as the major commodities. Most of the data is available for convenient download.

Help:

• Refinitiv Workspace online tutorials and courses
• Tutorials for Working with MS Excel
• Datastream datatype description

Access:

• Student-access to the database is provided via remote access to the two terminals. Access is managed via the ILIAS group Finance Databases. For questions regarding access to Workspace, please contact lorena.steeb uni-mannheim.de.
• For academic staff access is available at the Chair of Finance. The terminal can be accessed remotely. Access ist managed via the ILIAS group Finance Databases. Frequent users can register for a personal account, granting access to the database from their own device without using remote desktop or booking a slot. Further information can be found in the mentioned ILIAS group. For questions, please contact Stefan Scharnowski. 
• Access to Workspace is limited to faculty and students of the University of Mannheim.

Bisnode Firmenprofile (Hoppenstedt Firmendatenbank)

Contents:

• Companies: Information on more than 850,000 companies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria
• Balance Sheet: More than 4 million annual accounts
• Groups: Ownership structure of more than 850,000 companies, persons and public corporations all over the world
• Managers: Business data relating to 1,6 million managers out of the top management

Access: Bisnode Firmenprofile

ISS – Institutional Shareholder Services

Contents:

ISS delivers insights to help researchers examine governance risk and understand key issues or trends in the areas of board, compensation, shareholder proposals, institutional voting records and shareholder meeting results. Our subscription includes the datasets:

• Governance – providing data on classic takeover defense and other corporate governance provisions
• Voting Results – analyze vote results at the company and proposal level and identify trends in corporate governance
• Shareholder Proposals – access proposals that came to a vote as well as those that were withdrawn by the proponent or allowed to be omitted from the proxy by the SEC
• Incentive Lab – access executive compensation data
• Voting Analytics – U.S. mutual fund voting records for all institutions filing the SEC form N-PX

Help: For more detailed information on ISS, see the documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

I/B/E/S

Contents: The Institutional Brokers Estimates System (I/B/E/S) provides consensus and detail forecasts from security analysts, inclusing earnings per share, revenue, cash flow, long-term growth projections and stock recommendations.

Help: For more detailed information on the I/B/ES files, see the documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration)

Orbis (Bureau van Dijk)

Contents: Orbis contains information on over 275 million companies worldwide, with an emphasis on private company information. Orbis combines information from regulatory and other sources, and delivers company information with added value. It can be used to research individual companies or groups of companies, search for companies by profile and to analyze and evaluate companies. All data is standardized for easy cross-border comparisons.

In addition to that, extended access to Orbis is available, including bulk-download of huge datasets and access to historical updates of Orbis. Extended access can be used by professors and academic staff of the University of Mannheim as well as for student theses supervised by them. 

Help:

• Orbis user guide

Access: Orbis (via Bureau van Dijk interface)

Extended Access: For bulk download of large datasets („Orbis Generics“) as well as for historic updates an extended access option is available for Orbis. Extended access can be used by professors and academic staff of Mannheim University, including student thesis supervised by these persons. For usage a special username/password is required, which is ad­ministered by the Dean's Office of the Business School. Please contact orbis uni-mannheim.de to reserve access.

SDC Worlwide Mergers, Acquisitions & Alliances (Thomson Financial)

Contents: SDC Worldwide M&A provides data regarding worldwide mergers, acquisitions and alliances, and stock repurchases. The data covers approximately 672,000 global M&As from 1985 to the present (data for the U.S. is available since 1979). Corporate stock repurchase programs are recorded from 1994 to the present. 

Help: For more detailed information on the SDC files, see the documentation and manuals page available via WRDS.

Access: via WRDS (requires registration).

SNL Unlimited (SNL Financial)

Contents: The Unlimited version of SNL comprises financial data, news and analyses for more than 6.500 public and more than 50.000 private companies from the following industries: banking (worldwide), insurance (USA, Canada, Europe) and financial services (USA, Canada).  

Help: After having logged in to the database, scroll down and click the „Help“ button in the footer of the web page.

Access: Access to the database is restricted to members of the University of Mannheim and requires personal registration with your University of Mannheim e-mail address via this web page: SNL registration page. SNL works best with the current version of the Internet Explorer.

Zephyr (Bureau van Dijk)

Contents: Zephyr is a comprehensive database of deal information, supporting M&A research. It contains information on M&A, IPO, private equity and venture capital deals and rumors. Zephyr has information on 1.6 million deals and rumors with over 100.000 being added annually.

Help: Zephyr user guide

Access: Zephyr (via Bureau van Dijk interface)