VIP Review: Company Watch
Jinfo Blog

24th February 2010

By Anne Jordan

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The February issue of VIP Magazine (No. 75) contains a review of Company Watch (http://www.companywatch.net), a product first reviewed in April 2007, prior to the global recession. Since then, company failures have sky-rocketed and ratings agencies have faced significant criticism over their role. Company Watch offers an analytical tool for measuring the financial health of corporations worldwide, so it is an appropriate time, therefore, to revisit this product and update our readers. Whilst there are other vendors providing access to company financials, the unique selling point of Company Watch is its proprietary methodology for assessing financial health with three main measures of financial health, the H-Score® (Health Score), the Risk Rating and the PoD® (the percentage Probability of Distress). The vendor claims that approximately 90% of company failures were identified in advance by its system. Failure is defined as bankruptcy, receivership, or other event indicative of acute financial distress (such as Chapter 11 in the US). Examples of recent company failures which Company Watch predicted are Woolworths Group plc and Arcandor AG. Company Watch is used by international corporations, banks, fund managers, insurance companies, chartered accountants, etc. Users include HSBC, PwC, and Honda, as well as Anthony Bolton, who has been described as 'probably the City’s best known fund manager'. Company Watch covers the majority of quoted companies across the world plus virtually every private company in the UK. The system uses data from Standard & Poor’s Global database and Jordans. The vendor hopes to have Western Europe private company data available before the end of 2010. The Search Engine function in Company Watch provides a wide range of options for searching and creating industry rankings, benchmarking, and marketing prospects, and the system has an intuitive interface. There are a lot of graphs and tables to assist easy understanding of underlying data. There is currently no automatic alerting feature on Company Watch and given the strength of the product in assessing financial health, this is surely an area where the system could add value. Company Watch have advised that email alert functionality is currently in development stage and expects to release in 2010. Purchase the full report reviewing Company Watch: http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/report/1599 Save money by purchasing VIP Issue No. 75, February 2010, which includes this full report, as well at the report on Plunkett Research: http://web.vivavip.com/go/shop/magazine/75

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