COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
www.spark-interfax.ru
Professional solutions study the business environment learn more about your client measure credit risks analyze competitors study the market evaluate investments set up company monitoring alerts
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Сontents SPARK today SPARK information the way it is Brief information search guide Basic services Macroeconomic indicators Application Examples SPARK timeline
1–2 3–4 5 – 14 15 – 21 22 – 25 26 – 29 30
Pervaya Tverskaya-Yamskaya 2, Moscow, 127006, Russia Tel/fax: +7 (495) 787-43-43 E-mail:
[email protected] Interfax Europe, London Ground Floor, 10-13 Lovat Lane, London EC3R 8DN Tel: +44 (0) 20 7256 3910 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7283 1332
Interfax Deutschland GmbH Taunusstrasse 54, 61440 Oberursel Tel: +49 (6171) 695 750 Fax: +49 (6171) 989 995
Interfax America, New York 40 Wall Street, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10005 Tel: +1 646 512 5633
Interfax Central Europe (Warsaw, Prague, Budapest) ul. Golebiowskiego 4/6, 01-504 Warsaw, Poland Tel: +48 22 401 35 40 Fax: +48 22 401 35 40
Interfax America, Denver 3025 S. Parker Road, Suite 737 Aurora, Colorado 80014, USA Tel: +1 (303) 368 14 21 Fax: +1 (303) 368 14 58
Interfax China, Hong Kong Suite 1601, Wilson House 19-27, Wyndham Street Central, Hong Kong, China Tel: +852 2537 2262 Fax: +852 2537 2264
www.spark-interfax.ru
1
SPARK today The biggest corporate database SPARK is the definitive Russian database, encompassing information on all registered legal entities in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. This includes information supplied by the federal services, ministries and agencies, as well as from key media and other sources. The archives of some sources date back to 1992. Key profile components. These include: the requisites of companies searched; registration information as filed with the registering authority and licenses; the company structure; owners; subsidiaries; the branch network and governing bodies; statistical reports and financial statements adapted for fundamental analysis; financial ratios and estimates, including sector ratios; information about audits; the financials of banks and insurance companies; point scores, including those related to credit risks; the description of the business researched; development plans; landmark events and announcements of upcoming corporate events; information about securities issues; the calendar of events for shares and bonds; stock market quotes; information about the registrar; recommendations from analysts; analytical reviews and comments; a database on bankruptcies and arbitration court awards; media reports and publicly available information; information about the company’s liabilities and participation in government tenders.
Unique capabilities for analysis Analysts will benefit from the following: tools for the snapshot and comprehensive evaluation of the financial status of companies; industries and regions; the possibility of tailoring methodologies for evaluation purposes, as well as the presentation of information in the system;
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
credit risk analysis; the possibility to search for key manufacturers; search possibilities for consumers of commodities or services, as well as the identification of their market shares; company rankings of banks and insurers by various financial indicators and estimates; the ability to search for links between companies by their co-owners, executives or other affiliates; the possibility of visualizing all direct and indirect links; the evaluation of the company’s place in the industry and/or region and the possibility to make such comparison with similar companies. Modern information technologies easily allow a thorough analysis of available information regarding your partners, potential partners or debtors. Such analyses may be used to evaluate just where such businesses stands while also forming an accurate picture of their current operations.
A tool for professionals SPARK aspires to provide answers to all such company queries. In order to keep abreast with the growing needs of our clients and expand the spectrum of potential users, new sources of information are systematically added to SPARK, and its functions are continually expanded. On this note, in 2009 alone the database almost doubled, and over the course of a year SPARK handles more than 10 million client queries. SPARK include: analytical divisions of holdings, banks and investment companies; security services; marketing services responsible for evaluating the market environment of their companies; analysts and services attempting to identify market potentials and find new fields of operations; logistical services and sales divisions; credit and limit units of banks; risk management services; insurance companies; consulting and audit companies; appraisers and court-appointed managers; news and monitoring agencies; the mass media; divisions of ministries and agencies responsible for monitoring companies in a specific industry or region; state services and both universities and colleges. Основные типы информации Всего Периодичность Среднее кол-во юридических лиц, обновления юр. лиц, на 20.01.2010 обновляющихся в течение года
www.spark-interfax.ru
2 3
SPARK information the way it is Key types of information
Legal entities, total as of 20.01.2010
Frequency of updates
Average number of legal entities updated in a year
Registration information about legal entities
6,949,902
Quarterly+online
2,100,000
Company financial reports
2,161,915
Quarterly
800,000
Financial statements of banks
1,655
Monthly
1,000
Financial statements of insurance companies
1,529
Twice a year
700
Bankruptcies and arbitration
831,000
Daily
310,000
State procurements
184,827
Weekly
91,000
Securities’ issuers reports
149,116
Daily
95,000
Verification of telephone numbers, addresses etc.
297,996
Daily
200,000
6,046,645
Quarterly
500,000
Russia
Registration information about self-employed entrepreneurs Regional statistics and macroeconomic indicators
Monthly
Archive of media reports
Online
Ukraine Registration information about legal entities Financial statements Securities’ issuers reports
1,524,289
Quarterly
300,000
526,666
Quarterly
500,000
5,861
Daily
5,800
331,249
Quarterly
250,000
134
Daily
134
Kazakhstan Registration information about legal entities Securities’ issuers reports
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Average number of new entities added to SPARK during the year: Russia – 450,000 Ukraine – 18,000 Kazakhstan – 4,500
According to the Federal Tax Service, Russia had just over 4.2 million legal entities as of late 2009. The difference between this figure and the size of the SPARK database (6.9 million) can be attributed to companies that have stopped their operations and also economic entities that were not re-registered in 2002. SPARK contains financial information about some 2.1 million companies in Russia, which have submitted their financial statements to the state statistical authorities at least once. SPARK offers full information on the some 50,000 joint stock companies currently active in Russia. SPARK contains up-to-date, detailed profiles of approximately 5,000 issuers, and these are constantly being monitored for changes via various channels, including the Internet. SPARK accumulates data from more than 15 government agencies that report various information about legal entities, as well as information supplied by the companies themselves. The purpose of SPARK is not only to collect corporate data, but also to provide clients with a powerful tool for the analytical processing of this information. Through various search engines SPARK enables users to compare companies by their performance results; to rank them by regions or industries, as well as allowing users to track and visualize links between companies and other entities. SPARK offers the user ready-made report forms, and tailored reports may also be compiled for the financial analysts. All of these factors serve to provide a more accurate analysis and appraisal of individual economic agents. On a daily basis, a typical SPARK client faces not only the issue of finding and gaining access to critical information, but also the problem concerning the reliability of such information. SPARK resolves this problem in the following way: all information is official. When you open a company’s financial statements, for example, you will always be able to identify the source of this information. Information is updated only after it is renewed by its source. The database on bankruptcies and arbitration is updated daily.
www.spark-interfax.ru
4 5
Brief information search guide Search by Code During registration or re-registration, companies get several individual codes that identify the legal entity or the private businessman. For Russia, these codes are INN, OGRN, and OKPO. For Ukraine this code is ERDPOU, and for Kazakhstan the codes are RNN and OKPO. It is possible to identify a company by entering its code only. Sometimes errors happen, as a result of which codes are incorrectly entered into the register, or there are similar codes for different companies, but the percentage of such errors is extremely low, and the registration authorities are constantly working to locate and correct such errors. The field “Company Code” automatically identifies the type of the code entered.
Search by Name Search by name helps search not only by full or brief name of a company or part of it, but also by all previous names of the company—if such names existed. If you check the field “Exact Search,” which is located near “Search by Name,” the search will only yield exact hits even if the entered word is part of other company names. Well-known companies are often associated with the brands they promote, not with their real names. In this case, a search by brand may not yield anything. Likewise, the company found may have no relation to the owner of the trademark. Searching by name may yield a list of many companies. Here we should mention a legal collision with what currently exists in Russia: Despite Article 1474 of the Russian Civil Code, which provides that a legal entity has exclusive right to use its business name, a search for the company OOO
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Romashka in SPARK, for example, yields almost 400 companies called Romashka. If we search without mentioning the form of ownership, the search will yield thousands of companies called Romashka. Unfortunately, registration bodies currently do not check if there are already other companies with the same name. Therefore, it makes sense to restrict the search by mentioning, for example, the region where the company is located, or part of its address, or the company’s CEO.
Search by Address It is always better to search by a company’s address if you know the region where the company is located. In this case, it is enough to enter the name of the street and the number of the building in the field “Address.” Regional division in the SPARK system is based on the code OKATO, which helps determine the region of the company’s location and settlement.
Using Search by Region one must bear in mind that companies conducting their main activities in a specific region are frequently registered in a different region. If more than 50 companies are registered at a specific address, an exclamation point is put in the “Company Card” opposite this address to show that this address is probably a mass registration address. By clicking it you can get a list of all companies registered at this address.
www.spark-interfax.ru
6 7
Search by CEO Enter the full name of the CEO in the field “CEO,” and you can find all organizations where this individual is a top manager, a shareholder, or a board member. However, it should be taken into account that official company information does not always state the full name, and queries should be formed bearing this in mind.
Search by Phone Searching by a company phone number is done with or without the telephone code of the settlement or locality. This was done to ensure users’ convenience, as not all companies can provide current telephone codes due to changes on the part of telephone communications operators.
Use of branch affiliation When the branch affiliation needs to be stated in SPARK, the OKVED classification (Russian Business Activities Classification) is used. There is also a possibility of using the old OKONH classification, which was in use before 2004.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
The following should be taken into account when working with these classification systems: A search can be implemented both by the main activity type (check “main”) and all other activity types (check “by registration”) that the enterprise has registered with statistics bodies, i.e., virtually all activity types stated in the charter. A search by registration will yield a high “noise level,” i.e., such a search will yield many companies registered with this activity type). In its annual accounting report, enterprise must state the code it used for most of its sales revenue or proceeds as its main code. As a result, companies may theoretically change their main code almost every year. A main code search is thus implemented by default. When working with sector classifications, please bear in mind that the main code does not always correspond to the activity type associated with the company. For example, the accounting report of OAO Gazprom states “Business and Management Consulting” as its main OKVED code, and the main industry of OAO Lukoil is stated as “Geological Exploration, Geophysical, and Geochemical Activities for Study of Subsoil Resources and Mineral Resources Reproduction.” Therefore, searches for these companies in the gas or oil industry by their main OKVED codes will not yield any results. If you work with companies operating in a specific industry or group of industries on a permanent basis, you have a function available that saves groups of codes relating to the classification(s) of your interest. As there were some 760 OKONH codes and the OKVED classification already contains some 1,900 codes, this is a very useful function to keep in mind, especially if you work in market research.
Use of ownership forms The All-Russian ownership form classification (OKFS) and the All-Russian incorporation form classification (OKOPF) are irreplaceable assistants both in search by essential elements and in the creation of samples, when, for example, we need to find all companies with foreign capital in the form of ZAO in a specific region and/or industry. It should be borne in mind that, if we check the point “exclude” located near the form of property, we can do a search by all ownership forms excluding the selected form.
Search by Financial Indicatos (Ranking) One of the most popular methods of selecting companies for further analysis is the search by financial indicators or company ranking within a specific industry or region. Both of these search systems use a number of criteria, including: financial indicators taken from accounting reports or calculated by us; the company’s affiliation with specific regions, industries and/or the selected reporting date. Through a search by financial indicators a user can choose to state a reporting period for every financial indicator. The resulting table will be formed as a standard table with a list of companies.
www.spark-interfax.ru
8 9
This may be saved as a standard list and then used to create a consolidated report with a desired structure if need be.
Only one financial indicator can be selected for ranking. Therefore, there can be only one reporting period for it. If needed, the resulting table for subsequent analysis may be formed immediately and opened in MS Excel by clicking "Export to Excel".
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Search by Media Archives Searches may be implemented by clicking “News” in the main menu of “Company Card.” The service provides access to SCAN text database, which contains archives of more than 2,500 agencies, newspapers, and magazines, as well as disclosure systems and specialized publications. This base is unique because it is the only database containing a complete archive of Interfax reports. The most that other similar systems can provide are Internet versions of publications, which as a rule only contain three to five percent of the total number of reports issued by Interfax. As such a search is implemented using a selected company card, users should use either the name of the company or the full name of its CEO (there is no need to enter this information manually, it can be just ticked off). A search by company name will be conducted with regard to the full and brief name form and without regardless of the ownership form. If necessary, additional search words can be entered into the "Key words" field.
Search by Arbitration Court Awards The Arbitration Court Award Database (BRAS), which publishes awards issued by 112 arbitration courts (from first-instance courts to the Supreme Arbitration Court), began functioning in Russia in 2008. This information (some 5,000 documents daily) goes directly into the SPARK system.
www.spark-interfax.ru
10 11
A search for awards can be conducted by both using the “Company Card” (using the field “Arbitration” in the main menu of the “Company Card”) and SCAN system linked to SPARK, where a more complex search can be done using more than 3 million documents from the BRAS archive. A company card only has the item “Arbitration” if the system identifies the appropriate documents uses the shortened company name. While working with this information, you should bear in mind that the system searches only by parties’ names and cannot identify awards involving specific legal entities (which frequently happens if there are legal entities with similar short names). Unique legal entity codes were not stated in awards before 2010. The only exception is in bankruptcy cases, in which OGRN has been stated since early 2009. On an encouraging note, the Supreme Arbitration Court has expressed an intention to introduce unique identification by making appropriate changes to the Russian Arbitration Procedure Code. An awards search on companies will contain the name of the party; the type of ; process role (plaintiff, defendant, etc.); the type of award (decision, resolution, etc.); the date of the award; the case number and the arbitration court that has accepted the case for consideration, as well as a reference to the document containing the text of the award.
Bankruptcy Announcements Prompt receipt of information on initiation of procedures used in bankruptcy cases, be they supervision, tender proceedings, or the start of financial rehabilitation procedures, is important not only for receivership creditors, but also to all persons, legal entities or private individuals, interacting with the company in any way.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
The SPARK archive on bankruptcy reports has been maintained since 1995. This contains reports published in the newspapers Kommersant, Rossiiskaya Gazeta (2002-2008), and Vestnik FFMS (1988–2002).
If you are a creditor (in cash or goods) of any company subjected to bankruptcy procedures, tracking such vital information is very important because inclusion in the register of claims requires foresight and timely participation in creditors’ meetings and other actions. Although decisions made at creditors’ meetings can be invalidated by law if you were not notified in a timely manner, such actions also need to be taken within a specific time period.
State Contracts (Tenders) Another very interesting search system is located in the “Company Card” in the section “Company Activities/State Contracts.” This section contains information on contracts signed by specific legal entities; contracts for supply of goods signed as a result of placement and the performance of work or provision of services for public needs. SPARK reflects information on companies, both contractors and customers. The system contains information on contracts signed in 2007 and beyond. One of the beneficial “side effects” of this information is that the tool for using this information for marketing research has been created by us. If an OKP code is stated in the second column of the table opposite the commodity, a click on it leads to the section “Commodity Price Analysis,” which
www.spark-interfax.ru
12 13
contains reports on all goods and services to which this code is assigned, including the price per commodity unit and the amount of purchase, as well as a list of customers.
The source of information is the Register of Public Contracts, which is kept by the Federal Treasury. This work is governed by the Russian Government Resolution No. 807 of December 27, 2006 and Federal Law N 94-FZ of July 21, 2005 on the Placement of Orders for Supply of Goods, the Performance of Work, the Provision of Services for Public and Municipal Needs. Under this legislation, the ordering party submits to the authorized body information on the contract or must change it within three business days. Likewise, the information is officially published in the register within three days from this moment. Such information is provided to SPARK on a daily basis. This information can be used to evaluate the activities of companies on the state services market (what it supplies, the worth of goods and services suppliers, degree of activity, etc.). If a company avoids the fulfillment of services and violates the terms of the contract, it lands in the Register of abusive contractors, which is kept by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and is governed by the law N 94-FZ. Companies included in this register cannot take part in state purchases for a period of two years. The list of companies included in this register can be found in the menu “Lists/Register of Careless Suppliers”.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Information on this is also available in the “Company Card.”
Search by Archives of Reports in the Federal Service for Financial Markets This search may be implemented by clicking on “Archives of FSFM Reports” in the menu “Search” in the SPARK main menu. This FSFM archive contains issuers’ reports beginning from 1992 and includes lists of affiliated persons, quarterly reports, decisions on securities issues, issue prospectuses and significant events. Such documents are typically provided by joint stock companies and limited liability companies (in the event of bond issue) to FSFM regional offices, which we obtain and process on a monthly basis. This archive, which is contained in SPARK, is truly unique because it helps track historical ties between private individuals and legal entities while also obtaining historical information on securities issue and shareholders, as well as other important information for close to a 20-year period.
www.spark-interfax.ru
14 15
Basic services The Company List According to SPARK usage data, more than 90 percent of all user enquiries receive responses in the form of a list of companies. In this respect we have tried to make this function as simple and intuitive as possible. Most functions are available only for saved lists. Information about these lists is stored on our servers, so a saved list can only be accessible if you enter your login and password from an office or home computer. There are a variety of options within SPARK to enable effective use of the company list. These include the ability to: save, rename and delete lists check one or more companies and add it/them to different lists merge a list with another saved list enable other users from your company to work with list on a joint basis set up a list to update monitoring build a summary report for the list set a number of displayed companies on one page sort the list according to field hide unwanted headings.
Monitoring Updates The best way to track your major risks with regard to companies is to monitor all new information about those companies. A list of companies can be monitored by clicking "adjust monitoring for list" in the list's menu. The type of information that can be monitored is indicated in the screenshot below. After designating which information should be monitored, do not forget to check "activate".
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
As SPARK receives new information, it immediately checks your monitoring lists. If any changes have occurred in the facts you have specified, you will be notified by email.
Summary List Report This function is only available for saved company lists. A Summary Report may be presented as simply a list of companies with their requisites, including the address, sector, telephone number and surname of manager; and as a list of companies with financial indicators for requested reporting periods.
www.spark-interfax.ru
16 17
Creating summary reports enables you not only to conduct a financial analysis of selected companies, but also market research based on the performance of companies from a specific sector or region.
Loading Lists by Codes A very useful function that enables you to form a list of companies quickly using a set of statistical company codes, such as OKPO (Russian National Nomenclature of Business and Organization Classification), OGRN (Primary State Registration Number,), INN (Taxpayer Identification Number) and RTS (Russian Trading System) codes. This is accessible from "lists" in the SPARK Home Menu.
The file for uploading to a SPARK list must be in TXT format and be presented as a set of codes in the form of one column, i.e. each line should contain only one code. When the upload begins, you must enter the correct code for uploading. If your internal lists contain various types of codes, it would be better to create your own list in SPARK for each type of code and then simply merge all of these lists into one using the "merge lists" function. The most convenient way of doing this is to use the "user lists administration" function in the SPARK Home Menu.
Checking for Fresh Reports The Service Menu in the SPARK Home Menu contains the function "check latest accounting reports" which you can use to find out quickly whether any fresh reports related to a saved list are available.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Checks can be made for the following types of reports entering the SPARK system: quarterly FFMS reports financial statements list of affiliated entities (from FFMS reports).
Creating Analytical Reports The ability to create in-house reports from information provided by SPARK is a powerful tool for analyzing corporate financial reports. There is no need to write your own converters to process information in the table editors. SPARK provides all of the tools necessary for this sort of analysis. In order to customize or create an in-house report, open "Tools/Report settings for financial analysis" in the SPARK Home Menu's Services. Use your own formulas to create analytical datasheets, risk assessment reports, tables and charts in order to present a company's results more conveniently. The following features may be used to compile reports: an option to calculate indicators or required ratios according to in-house formulas based on financial statements an option to use the beginning/end of period date in calculations a tool to verify that calculated data complies with specific required ratios calculating percentage ratios a tool to create charts and diagrams an option to monitor indicator dynamics a tool to input conventions for data representation in the final report.
www.spark-interfax.ru
18 19
User Reports SPARK enables the creation of User Reports in addition to the pre-set reports that SPARK offers such as SPARK-List, SPARK-profile, SPARK-Finances and others, using the “Company Cards” function in the Home Menu (see screenshot below). Use the first button to add all information from the Company Card being viewed. The shortcut for this has a red border, and the top button can be used to toggle plus or minus. The minus button deletes the current section from the report. Thus, to avoid overloading the displayed report with unnecessary information, you will be able to specify only those sections that you require. The function is also accessible from the news search engine in the SCAN database, the difference being that individual articles can be added to the report. The second button is the report preview and the third is "clear report". When switching to a different Company Card the report is cleared automatically.
Company Card Links When viewing the Company Card, all fonts for sources for which additional information can be obtained are highlighted in blue. Here are a few examples: If, for example, first, middle and last names are highlighted, you can click to get a pop-up menu containing a report on the first, middle and last names from SPARK, as well as links to those names.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Then a search in public domains can be implemented. The SPARK report allows you to view the companies in which the names figure as founders or have held management positions. But you must always remember that persons cannot be identified for certain, and that the search results might simply yield full name matches in addition to the entry you require.
Visualizing Ties To facilitate the search for affiliated entities, SPARK has created a tool for the graphic representation of direct (founder-subsidiary) and indirect (common address, same telephone or same company CEO's name) ties between companies. The service is available via the "Links" menu in the Company Card. When representing links between founders and subsidiaries, the share in a company's capital is displayed (links of this kind are colored black). Personal links are shown in black if the person is a company founder. Links will be blue if the person with the stated first, middle and surnames was or is the company's CEO. Links by address and telephone number are in red and denote that several other companies are registered under the same telephone or address. If the number of companies exceeds a certain amount, then links are not displayed, and only the number of linked companies is brought up.
www.spark-interfax.ru
20 21
Privatization of Companies The “privatization” menu can be found in Home Menu “Tools” and is part of a joint project between the Federal Property Management Fund and the Interfax Group, designed to bring information transparency to the privatization process in Russia. We disclose financial, operating and property information about companies, whose shares and stakes are put up for sale. Thus we bring investors and analysts the opportunity to conduct an adequate evaluation of state assets being privatized. You will find all data about a specific enterprise on the card, which you can access by clicking its name in the table. The search, selection and ranking mechanisms can be accessed via table’s top menu, and via the control elements in the table heading. In order to perform a correct analysis you must distinguish between two types of enterprises subject to privatization: Federal Wholly-Owned State Enterprises (FGUP) and other forms of ownership, such as open and closed joint-stock and limited-liability companies (OAO, ZAO and OOO). The FGUPs are privatized under a special procedure, most often by turning them into OAOs and then putting 100 percent of their shares up for sale. Other forms of ownership are privatized through a number of standard stages, from decisions on the terms of sale to the sale itself.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Macroeconomic Indicators The "Analytics" section in the Home Menu provides access to six key macroeconomic statistics sections: consumer prices, producer prices, financial statistics, sector ratios, economic indicators and human resources. All data are provided on a monthly basis by Rosstat.
Consumer/Producer Prices These two sections are practically identical in terms of functions, and are based on data submitted on Consumer Price forms (the registration of prices for retail goods and services) and Producer Price forms (information about prices for industrial inputs). The level of detail extends to constituent territories of the Russian Federation (regions, territories and republics). Categories of goods and services have an automatic matching feature for ease of navigation.
As you input text, the system offers a choice of positions for goods and services which corresponds to the inputted text.
www.spark-interfax.ru
22 23
If you leave the "select product/service category" checked, the report will constitute a list of products or services that are included in that category, with prices for Russia as a whole or, if you specify a certain region, for that region.
The name of the product/service in the report is a link which can be used to switch to the shortcut menu and build a summary chart of price fluctuations for a selected position for three years past or to build a regional breakdown for the product/service.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
If "select product/service" remains unchecked, then the report will consist of information about prices for the product or service by region for the specified year. The name of a region is a link that can be used not only to create a chart but also to open a "Region Card" of all macroeconomic and statistical reports, conveniently gathered according to the territorial principle.
Financial Statistics This section grants access to a unique database of aggregated financial indicators of companies. The report's functionality is straightforward and convenient, affording easy access to aggregated corporate data in a selected region or sector for a designated period. The report can be detailed by selecting the necessary sector from the Russian Classification of Economic Activities (OKVED) in the form of two dropdown lists. If it is necessary, for example, to retrieve information on companies with revenue of up to $1 million, then the following steps are needed: check "proceeds filter" in the field "up to" and input 1000, select US dollar as the currency and leave the unit measure x1000.
www.spark-interfax.ru
24 25
Benchmark Statistics The main purpose of this section is to fill the information gap in the sphere of analysis of financial results and the financial condition of enterprises in Russia. This section serves to support activity related to financial consulting, namely mergers & acquisitions, block deals, the creation or dissolving of companies, restructuring and inter-analysis, budgeting, business planning and much more. In addition to averaged sector indicators, we have calculated nine financial indicators fo Russia as a whole. We have additionally introduced analysis, breaking down indicators as per region and company size. Company size is determined with sales revenue (proceeds). We have introduced nine ranges for this indicator. The ranges were selected based on our subjective opinion.
We have not excluded any sectors from the calculation, leaving it to the user to decide on the adequacy of a sector's assessment, based on available reports by leading enterprises. Therefore if you take, for example, the sector "Nuclear Power," you could conclude whether the information publicly available for this sector adequately characterizes the financial state of the sector.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Application Examples Checking a Company Partner Suppose you need to quickly obtain information about a company that has made a business offer… If you type the company's name and (preferably) region in which it is located into the SPARK search field, you will then either see an immediate company card or a list from which you can easily select the company. Now you can at least assess the following: whether the company has been registered with the state authorities; who its managers and founders are – and just how big and serious the business happens to be. If the Company Card contains financial information in its "assessment of financial condition" window, you will be able to see how the company ranks in its sector and/or region. It will also be easy for you to check a company's affiliation, including that of its management, with other firms.
Searching for Potential Clients A major bank is expanding its regional presence and plans to open a branch in Lipetsk… The bank is interested in the major enterprises to which it intends to provide services in the region. Equipped with SPARK, the bank puts together a ranking of the Lipetsk region's thousand largest enterprises by sales revenue. This gives the bank important information about the region's financial potential in general, and material for its sales department, as SPARK can display a list of potential clients ranked by this criterion, containing their addresses and telephone numbers. So the enquiry might result in a table of the Lipetsk region's largest 1,000 companies, indicating their types of activity, while also ranking them by revenue and showing their revenue and net profit as well as the addresses, numbers and names of their CEOs. In practice, SPARK has shown that on this basis a bank's marketing and sales division may immediately begin contacting potential clients on the list. Users can also build a sample with more interesting parameters. For example, you could choose to identify all enterprises in a region with turnover of more than RUR 100 million; sort them by profit for the past two years or by companies averaging more than 100 employees. In each specific case you can always determine the most suitable parameters to achieve your objectives in the best possible way – and SPARK is the indispensable tool for this.
Studying the Competitive Environment Let’s say that you need to select and analyze companies doing business in your sector and in your region.
www.spark-interfax.ru
26 27
For this purpose you can search by requisites or financial indicators and save selected companies in the form of a list. Analysis of these companies is then possible by evaluating the evolution of their production and financial indicators, as well as by news items, material events and much more. You can supplement this list by searching for companies ranked by their range of goods in the "search" section of the SPARK Home Menu. The data obtained thereby is of value to manufacturing companies looking for potential customers, suppliers or partners. Using the menu in the "lists" section to set the list monitoring, you can also receive alerts about new information for companies that interest you or your business. User experience research shows that this gives access to extensive amounts of information necessary to form a correct and timely marketing strategy. A good competitive analysis cannot do without a detailed analysis of the marketing environment, which includes not only the list of the competitors themselves but also a study of the market conditions in which the firm operates. This includes goods produced and their substitutes, as well as a region's economic state, changes in demand for a company's products and so on. You can get answers to many of these questions by using the macroeconomic statistics in the SPARK Main Menu's "Analytics" section.
Sector Marketing Analysis Let’s say that a major software producer has decided to expand into the Rostov region. The company's potential clients are medium-sized firms with turnover of up to RUR 300 million. In the past, sales practice has shown that demand for the company’s software comes mainly from wholesale and retail trade companies. In order to select companies that meet the necessary requirements, SPARK uses the "select by financial indicators" function. Let’s say that the search parameter of profit-making entities in the Rostov region which operate in the trade sector and generate RUR 50 million to RUR 300 million of revenues is used. The search produces 2,204 companies in alphabetical order. You can switch from the obtained list via the "list report" function to a table with addresses, telephone numbers and CEO names. Clicking the company's name reveals a card with all information about a firm collected from official sources.
Snapshot Valuation of a Company Perhaps you need a preliminary valuation of a company ahead of a meeting. In order to determine a company's market value you must determine the value of assets, including fixed assets, machinery and equipment, warehouse inventories, financial investments, and intangible assets. You also need to evaluate a company's performance, its current and future income, its business development prospects and the competitive environment in the market. Then you must compare the company in question to its peers.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS INFORMATION
Only on the basis of such a comprehensive analysis is it possible to determine the true value of a business as an asset portfolio capable of generating profit. Using SPARK enables a preliminary valuation of an enterprise and its competitive environment to be performed while still at the stage of negotiating an appraisal contract--which has the added benefit of making you look more professional in the eyes of a potential client. The Company Card's "assessment of financial condition" section enables you to make an easy benchmark analysis of a company by 25 key economic indicators. Comparing absolute financial results and ratios with averaged sector indicators and determining a company's share in the region and in the sector enable a clear picture to be formed of a company's influence on the local economy. This also enables you to compare the situation at a company with the general state of affairs in the sector. For example, there are spheres of business where a negative financial indicator for one company could be evaluated as positive news simply because comparative analysis reveals that the average sector indicators are even worse.
If you want a more detailed competitive analysis, click the indicator to access a list of the closest competitors in a region or a sector. The report displays the absolute indicator and the corresponding share of each company.
www.spark-interfax.ru
28 29
Comparing Banks and Insurance Companies In this case, lets’ say you need a graphic comparison of the indicators of several banks or insurance companies. This option is accessible in the "Analytics/Ranking. Banks" or “Analytics/Ranking. Insurance Companies" sections. To analyze banks we have selected 11 key indicators. By searching for a specific indicator, for example "loans to individuals", and selecting several banks for comparison, you may then asses the monthly evolution of lending while also comparing the policies of selected banks in this area. You may also assess, for example, how banks have reacted to the crisis by adjusting their lending policies.
With regard to insurance companies, 14 main financial indicators are used for analysis. The comparison of insurance companies works along the same lines as that of banks. Simply click "compare" for the displayed companies.
INTERFAX INFORMATION SERVICES INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION GROUP
30
SPARK Timeline 2009
2008
2007 2006
2005
2004 2003
www.spark-interfax.ru
SPARK integrated with SCAN, a database of news stories Arbitration court rulings added Information on state contracts added Visualization of mutual ties between entities Services for verifying addresses of mass registration, search for common telephone numbers, Internet research of companies Data for companies in Ukraine and Kazakhstan added The ability to order reports from Unified State Register of Corporate Entities (EGRIUL) included in SPARK subscription Optimization of data and equipment upgrades boost productivity 300 to 400 percent Workforce headcount data for roughly 400,000 companies added Insurance Company Ranking module added (with 14 indicators) Statistical data for Russian regions added, including consumer prices, producer prices, human resources, etc. Ranking and comparison of regions by 15 key statistics, including GRP, population, inflation, number of registered enterprises, etc. Launch of SPARK e-store (www.ispark.ru ) – sale of information on companies using electronic payment system Bank Ranking module added (with 11 indicators Dedicated call center to check addresses and other company data created Data on more than 4.2 million individual entrepreneurs added Calendar of events for issuers with three sections: stocks, bonds and announcements Consensus forecast services for securities added Information on insurance company accounting (beginning in 2003) added Credit ratings of companies using methodology developed by Interfax-Credit Information Agency analysts appear Data for all companies in the Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations (EGRPUO) included Unique bankruptcy database created SPARK begins to conduct seminars with users to explore system functions and learn how to use database information Financial and other information on all banks operating in Russia added Software installed to compress traffic, speeding information retrieval for users GAAP financials added SPARK project launched
