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Establishment-Level Company Data

Below is a comparison chart that provides an overview of the key details of the four main establishment-level datasets available to Stanford researchers. We hope this helps point you in the right direction so you can identify the best fit for your needs, but understand that this is complex and are happy to talk with you more about your project if you Ask Us.

Name Orbis Historical D&B (Dun & Bradstreet) International Historical D&B (Dun & Bradstreet) U.S. Historical Data Axle Reference Solutions Historical (formerly Reference USA)
Vendor Moody's (formerly Bureau van Dijk) Mergent/LSEG Mergent/LSEG Data Axle (formerly InfoGroup)
Dataset Availability

Orbis Historical in Redivis

Also in WRDS, but the data is not identical; WRDS staff believes it has less data that what we have on Redivis.

 D&B International in Redivis D&B Establishment in Redivis

Data Axle Reference Solutions in Redivis

We do not subscribe to this data in WRDS.
Web-based individual look-up platform.* Orbis web D&B Hoovers web D&B Hoovers web Data Axle Reference Solutions web
Geographical Coverage Global Global U.S. only U.S. only
Core Business Model Used in compliance, risk management, and due diligence products. Used in marketing, credit risk, and supplier risk products.

Used in B2B sales and marketing products.

Used in B2B sales and marketing products.
Dates Covered (coverage gets better over time) 1980s-2023 (countries are added in different years) 2009-2021 (countries are added in different years) 1969-2022 (excluding 1981-1984) 2001-2024 (file layout changed in 2017)
Data Frequency

~Annual snapshots (exact month the snapshot is taken varies slightly)

Annual snapshots from December

Annual snapshots from December

 Annual snapshots
# of Establishments Covered in the Most Recent Year 547M 465M 35M 18M
Linking Identifiers

BvD ID, National ID, VAT/Tax Number, LEI, Ticker, ISIN

D&B ID (DUNS), National ID (availability varies by country, not available for US)

 D&B ID (DUNS) Reference Solutions ID (ABI)
Industry Classifications NAICS, SIC, NACE, national code, BvD major sector SIC, national code SIC, D&B Business Description NAICS, SIC
Address/Location Data

Address (physical), Latitude & Longitude (22% fill; fill rate varies by country)

Address (physical and mailing)

Address (physical and mailing)

Address (physical), Census Tract, Census Block, Latitude/Longitude, FIPS, CBSA
Historical Ownership Data

A subset (~135M active entities) have LINKS files since 2007. Coverage is better for larger companies + multi-nationals.

Provides majority + minority shareholders. Screen out minority shareholders to construct the corporate subsidiary structure.

A subset(~44M) have corporate tree Linkage files. Coverage is better for larger companies + multi-nationals.

Basic parent-subsidiary link

 Basic parent-subsidiary link
Company Metrics/Financials

Sometimes has more detailed financial metrics. Occasionally has employee size data.

Provides employee size + sales. Sometimes modeled, and there is a code to determine if that is the case.

Provides employee size + sales. Sometimes modeled, and there is a code to determine if that is the case.

Provides employee size + sales volume. Sometimes modeled, and you cannot tell which values are modeled vs. reported.
Legal Details Place of Incorporation, Incorporation Type Legal Structure None None
Alternative/Former Company Names** Yes Yes No No
CEO Name No Yes Yes No

*There are often more variables and sometimes more entities in the web-platforms than appear in our datasets in Redivis, typically depending upon how our datasets were constructed. Contact us if you have questions about this.

**Alternative or former names can be useful if you need to fuzzy name match with another source, and also for non-Latin alphabet languages.




Answered By: Alice Kalinowski
Feb 25, 2026

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