Hello,
A few weeks ago I posed the following question to this list
and the responses I received appear below. For privacy I
have left off the names of the institutions.
Thanks for your input.
Betty
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Subject: Capital IQ from Standard & Poor's
Is anyone familiar with or using Capital IQ from Standard & Poor's?
We've been approached about seeing a web-demo / 30-day trial.
It's a business intelligence tool which allows screening on public and
private companies but what really caught our eye is:
"It shows you which other law firms are also doing business with your
clients and who's working with your targets. It allows you to develop
business in specific geographic areas be it for opening a new office or
creating opportunities for existing ones."
Any feedback on Capital IQ would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Betty Edwards
Manager of Business Development Research
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
World Trade Center East
Two Seaport Lane
Boston MA 02210
T: 617-946-4875
F: 617-790-5395
E: bedwards@seyfarth.com
SUMMARY OF RESPONSES
We use Capital IQ here and my experience has been very good
with them. It's a group of relatively young people and generally when I
ask them for training or to work with another vendor to incorporate
their data they are very helpful.
Their tool is actually very M&A and Private Equity based, it's what they
started off with. They have however expanded into other areas. They
have analysts in India and here in the States entering the data so you
wouldn't be buying repackaged data.
Just a note on Capital IQ...The last place I worked,
bought this product for all the bankers on
their desktops. They LOVED it...the functionality, the customer support,
etc. I'm not sure how it would be for your use - the tool seems targeted
to investment banks, with its focus on M&A, competitive intelligence,
company info, integration with SEC filings, etc. The guys who started
the company (before it was bought by S&P) used to be investment bankers
themselves. Their customer support is also fantastic - very responsive,
and the bankers would use their help desk regularly. It was probably the
most popular tool we had!
There seem to be things Capital IQ does well that we don't use, and
things that we need that it does incompletely. I guess there are no perfect
solutions.
We've been subscribers for almost as long as it has been out, before
they became part of S&P, and can't live without it. It's invaluable in
the private equity business.
I tested it for 30 days for our economic crimes and health
care fraud units, in particular for our pharmaceutical investigations.
It would have saved us a tremendous amount of time. I also found the
data to be more complete and accurate than some other vendors. But,
unfortunately all offices are under a severe budget cut so
it was too expensive for us. I tested it about 6 months ago because ***
raved about it, I think *** did also.
I just sent an email to the list a couple of weeks ago with the
same question. Although the response wasn't much, two response were that
they tried it and it duplicated what they already had, and a couple of
people really like it. I didn't get much in the way of details.
ONLINE published three articles about all the merger & acquisitions
databases including Capital IQ in its November/December 2005 issue. Perhaps
that would be helpful in your evaluation.
We rely on CapitalIQ for part of the picture regarding the world of (US)
transactions/deals. Unfortunately, we have not found anything close to a
single comprehensive source in this regard, so we also use
"mergermarket" extensively and other tools to a lesser extent. If anyone
knows of a single source that covers almost everything concerning deal
activity, I'd LOVE to hear about it! (And no, neither "Firm360" nor
"Market Intelligence" has it all.) Back to CapitalIQ - We find it easy
to use and the data accurate. The only real drawback is breadth of coverage.
I've seen and tested Capital IQ and have been favorably impressed. It's very
nice.
We took a look at it about a year ago -- it has some nice features and
seemed easy to use, but at the time we didn't think it was worth the
cost. Perhaps they've changed their pricing model since then.
Basically, what Capital IQ does in this regard is it allows you to see
how different people and organizations are interconnected. You can establish
a number of criteria that allow you to evaluate a particular person's
relationships to a specific target. So, for example, you can see how
many boards a particular executive sits on. You can compare any number of
people and find out how the people in your sample group are "related,"
i.e. sit on the same board, are involved with a particular organization,
etc. You can also examine the relationship that different companies
have with each other.To many people, one of the biggest values
is the way Capital IQ trades M&A activity. Generally, it captures
any deal greater than $1 million in size. It supplements the standard
reporting that you would find on deals with broader information,
such as more detailed financial information and information on the
relationships between players involved, to give you a broader picture
of who's working with whom. You can also make direct comparisons
between different companies in the same business sector. The demo
would give you a thorough idea because it's done via WebEx, so
you can actually guide the system yourself to see how it works and set up
criteria that are the same as you would be interested in using on a
daily basis.
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