My Favourite Tipples from a Corporate Finance Specialist
Jinfo Blog

By Eileen Steer

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by business and corporate finance research specialist Eileen Steer. She shares her favourite free online resources in areas from UK company data and emerging markets insights to financial information, from some of the information market's best-known suppliers.

Item

As a freelance researcher working for different clients across a broad spectrum of specialist areas, my days are always different, interesting, and quite often very challenging in terms of the research I am asked to provide. I do a lot of work for smaller corporate finance companies, where sometimes budgets are tight, so wherever possible I will try to get information that is available in the public domain and free.

• Companies House UK: I am often asked to find deal values on UK transactions; if the deal involves a private company, sometimes deal value is not disclosed when the deal is announced. However, if the acquiring company is UK-based, it will very often be disclosed in that year's accounts. The added bonus is that all this information will soon be free from Companies House (Q2 2015).

• Thomson Reuters on Demand: Pay As You Go research service that gives access to the Thomson suite of products without having to pay the subscription charges. I use this when I need multiples for valuation purposes, analysts' reports and worldwide deal information. Turnaround time is really quick and information is well presented.

• Factiva: As a researcher mostly working in corporate finance this is an invaluable tool when gathering background information on sectors, deals and companies. When working on a particular project I use the alerts to make sure I am using the most up-to-date and relevant information in my research.

• EMIS (previously ISI Emerging Markets): EMIS is owned by Euromoney and provides information focusing on Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Latin America. Even though I do not subscribe to their paid services, they still have a lot of really useful information that is free, including their "Insights" on sectors in emerging market countries. Their information is well written and highly thought of by my clients.

For fun...

• Conde Naste Traveller: When I have had enough of the British weather and I need to get away (momentarily) this is where I look. They have the most beautiful photography and some of their destinations are breathtaking... I can only dream!

An article in FreePint I found particularly interesting:

• "Major Changes Coming for Access to UK Company Information". In October Chris Porter wrote about the upcoming changes; at the time I was not aware of this development at Companies House. I think the article was informative and helped raise the profile of what I think is an underutilised source of UK company information.

Contribute Your "My Favourite Tipples"

Would you like to share your "My Favourite Tipples" with the FreePint audience? For contributor guidelines email catherine.dhanjal@freepint.com or visit the Publish with FreePint page.

« Blog