Type Privately Held Number of locations 30 | Founder Bernard Van Ommeslaghe Founded 1991 Number of employees 700 | |
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Industry Business Intelligence/ company information Products A range of products including Orbis, Fame, Mint, Compliance Catalyst, Credit Catalyst, Procurement Catalyst, TP Catalyst Profiles | ||
Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing is a major publisher of business information, and specialises in private company data combined with software for searching and analysing companies. It is owned by a Swedish private equity group EQT and its senior management.
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Overview
Bureau van Dijk's product range combines data from regulatory and other sources, including 140 information partners, with software to allow users to manipulate data for a range of research needs and applications. Unlike other providers of content, Bureau van Dijk reveals their sources and shows the source data – allowing users to create their own analytics and predictive analysis based on underlying primary data and reporting.
The majority of staff focus on sales, marketing and customer support in offices in: Amsterdam, Beijing, Bratislava, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Manchester, Mexico City, Milan, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna, Washington D.C. and Zurich.
Bureau van Dijk's research team collects both global M&A data and intelligence around corporate ownership structures, and is based in Manchester, Brussels and Singapore. It also have a team of journalists writing news stories on deals and rumours.
Product management and software development are based in the Geneva and Brussels offices.
The company has over 5,000 clients including banks, insurance companies, financial and consulting organisations, governments and research institutes.
History
The origin of Bureau van Dijk dates back to 1970s. Belgian businessman Marcel van Dijk established a company specialising in documentary and information systems, named "Bureau Marcel van Dijk". In 1972, its activities were further deployed in the two companies established in Paris and Brussels.
In 1985, on the retirement of Marcel van Dijk, Professor Bernard van Ommeslaghe and Alain Liedts took over the company and extended its operations to include management consulting, auditing and IT support. In 1987, Bureau van Dijk took the pioneering role in Europe by launching a new activity: the design and dissemination on CD-ROM (the precursor to Bureau van Dijk's online databases) of economic and financial databases with information on companies.
In 1991, a second company, "Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing", was formed to assume responsibility for updating and expanding these databases, while the consulting division remained grouped within the company Bureau van Dijk Ingénieurs Conseils. The owners of Bureau van Dijk were private individuals who were also members of the management and board, and the company has since been sold.
Candover acquired a 60% stake in Bureau van Dijk in 2004 after founder and chairman Bernard Van Ommeslaghe, who was 70, decided to sell part. The other 40% was then thought to be owned by the management.
Bureau van Dijk was then sold to Charterhouse Capital Partners in July 2011, backed with 505 million euros of leveraged loans, including 365 million euros of senior loans and 140 million euros of mezzanine debt maturing in 2019. In July 2014, EQT Partners purchased Bureau van Dijk from Charterhouse backed by a 845 million-euro equivalent leveraged loan financing. In early 2015, Swedish pension fund Sjätte AP-fonden (AP6) bought a 3% stake in Bureau van Dijk, through a direct co-investment.
Products
Bureau van Dijk offers a range of products/databases which focus on corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), transfer pricing, compliance and third party due diligence, procurement and supplier risk, credit risk, academic research and business development. These products include:
Orbis
Orbis is Bureau van Dijk's flagship company database. It contains information on companies across the world and focuses on private company information and also presenting companies in comparable formats. It has information on more than 200 million companies. Bureau van Dijk sources the information from over 150 different providers and states that it adds value to this information as it standardises the data and links the sources together.
Amadeus
Analyse Major Databases from European Sources (Amadeus) is a pan-European database containing financial information on over 13 million public and private companies.
Orbis Bank Focus
Orbis Bank Focus is a global database containing information on over 40,000 public and private banks.
Osiris
Osiris is a database of listed companies, banks and insurance companies around the world.
Orbis Insurance Focus
Orbis Insurance Focus is a comprehensive database of detailed reports on public and private insurance companies around the world. It contains information on some 12,000 companies.
Zephyr
Zephyr is an information solution containing M&A, IPO and venture capital deals. As of January 2015, Zephyr has information on over 1.2 million deals and rumours.
EIU Dataservices
Bureau van Dijk also work with the Economist Intelligence Unit to publish EIU DataServices – a range of economic products combined with advanced software. These include products such as EIU CountryData, EIU Country Risk Model, EIU Financial Services Indicators and Forecasts and EIU World Investment Service.
Country-specific databases
Bureau van Dijk publishes country-specific databases, focusing primarily on European countries.
FACT
FACT is a credit risk framework made up of three main modules. Spreading and financial analysis, a risk rating engine and a credit workflow module. These can be used independently or combined for a complete end-to-end credit risk management solution.
PUBlizard
PUBlizard is a white-label cloud distribution platform for eBooks and documents enabling to build digital libraries. It will securely stream EPUB3 and PDF contents to subscribers via browser & mobile applications. PUBlizard is powering products for publishers, distributors, universities, libraries, book associations and information providers such as CourseSmart and Safari Books Online.
Zephus
Zephus is Bureau van Dijk's M&A research subsidiary and is based in Manchester. It is headed by Bureau van Dijk's head of M&A products, Lisa Wright. Researchers work on collating information on noteworthy deals and write M&A reports.
The researchers work in over 30 languages and all relevant information is translated into English. Zephus also offers bespoke research for the media.