(1888PressRelease)
October 25, 2008 - Sageworks Inc., a Raleigh based financial information and technology company has unveiled a new platform housing aggregated financial data on private companies in the United States by industry. This platform, Sageworks Index, will allow insight into the economic trends of private companies for the first time. “The importance of this data is paramount in truly understanding the current state of the economy,” remarks Brian Hamilton, Sageworks CEO.
While there are only 17,000 publicly traded companies in the US, there are over 20 million privately held companies in the nation. Privately held companies are businesses that are not publicly traded in the stock market. Because they are privately owned their financial information is not publicly reported or available. As a result, US business and economic performance is often gauged by the readily available financial data on the few publicly traded firms which may or may not accurately reflect the true state of the economy.
The data in Sageworks Index spans over 1600 industries and over 70 different financial metrics. These metrics include average net profit margins, percent sales growth, and return on equity by industry. While individual private company names are not attached with the data for confidentiality reasons, average financial metrics are calculated for even the most niche industries.
Users of Sageworks Index can see how the credit crisis and recent bank failures are impacting the financial health of private companies in industries such as residential building construction, retail clothing stores, and offices of physicians. Highlights of recent trends can be found on the Sageworks Industry Trends site at www.sageworksinc.com/industrytrends.
Sageworks’ data is the most accurate and timely information on privately held firms due to its source. Sageworks Inc. collects privately-held company data from financial professionals who subscribe to its ProfitCents and Sageworks Analyst programs. When financial reports are run through these programs, the data is collected and stored in anonymity. Over one thousand reports are run daily, and the new data is incorporated into the Sageworks industry statistics in real time.
About Sageworks, Inc.
Sageworks, Inc., a financial information company and the makers of ProfitCents (www.profitcents.com) was named to the 2007 Inc. 500 list of fastest growing privately held companies in the US. Sageworks is the developer of its patented platform technology (“FIND™”) from which it has developed several applications. These applications convert financial numbers into narrative text, and include ProfitCents and Sageworks Analyst. Sageworks has licensed its core technology to thousands of accounting firms, financial institutions, and information providers.
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