Worldscope Database Datatype Definitions Guide

26. HOW DOES WORLDSCOPE HANDLE COMPANY NAME CHANGES?
Issue 6
Frequently Asked Questions
Information regarding company name changes can be found in Footnote N to Field
01001 Net Sales or Revenues for the year in which the change of name occurred, or
the latest year updated where the change is recent. This footnote is always in the
format "Name changed from [old name] in [year]".
Worldscope company and security identifiers for U.S. companies are changed
whenever a name change or other corporate action leads to a change in the CUSIP
code issued by the Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures. When
this happens Worldscope, with the exception of a few identifying fields, will delete the
data on the old record and re-update it to a new record. Presence of data in Field
00000 Company Status indicates that the company or security had a CUSIP change.
The data in this field contains the text "CUSIP changed to [new CUSIP]". Footnote C
attached to Field 00000 Company Status will identify the new name of the company.
27. HOW CAN I DETERMINE WHICH COMPANIES OR SECURITIES ARE NOT TRADED?
Non-traded companies can be selected by checking for the absence of data in Field
05427 Stock Exchange(s) Listed. Since inactive companies and securities on
Worldscope have no stock exchange indicator either, the user may want to narrow
this search to exclude companies which have a value in Field 07015 Inactive Date
(Company) and/or Field 07012 Inactive Date (Security). This will leave all non-traded
active companies.
Further information regarding non-traded companies can be found by examining the
following footnotes attached to Field 05301 Common Shares Outstanding:
Footnote Text
F Privately owned company
G Cooperative company/consortium/partnership
J Government owned company or majority owned by government
W Company is a mutual insurance company
28. HOW DO I KNOW IF INFORMATION ON WORLDSCOPE IS PRELIMINARY?
Indicator- Data Update, field 07034 can be used to identify preliminary data. The
presence of a 1 in this field indicates the data provided is from a preliminary source. A
secondary method is the use of the footnote SP on Field 01001 Net Sales or
Revenues, any data for that year can be regarded as preliminary. The footnote is
removed when detailed financial statements are updated, generally upon receipt of
the annual report.
29. DOES WORLDSCOPE CARRY PROFORMA DATA?
Pro forma data may occasionally be shown for a company that has recently become
publicly held and is footnoted on Field 00000 Company Status, e.g., "Company
became publicly held in 1996. Prior data pro forma". The number of years of pro
forma data is generally restricted to the amount of history contained in the prospectus
or other registration documents at the time of the initial public offering.
30. DOES WORLDSCOPE CARRY RESTATED DATA?
Restated financial data is available for accounting periods beginning January 1,
2004 .
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