The Dun & Bradstreet Holding s, Inc. (D&B) is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses.[2] Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financial analysis, operations and supply, and sales and marketing professionals, as well as research and insights on global business issues. It serves customers in government and industries such as communications, technology, strategic financial services, and retail, telecommunications, and manufacturing markets.[3] The company's database contains over 500 million business records worldwide.[4]
History
19th century
Dun & Bradstreet traces its history to July 20, 1841, with formation of The Mercantile Agency in New York City by Lewis Tappan. Recognizing the need for a centralized credit reporting system, Tappan formed the company to create a network of correspondents who would provide reliable, objective credit information to subscribers.[5] As an advocate for civil rights, Tappan used his abolitionist connections to expand and update the company's credit information.[6]
Despite accusations of personal privacy invasion, by 1844 the Mercantile Agency had over 280 clients. The agency continued to expand, opening offices in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. By 1849, Tappan retired, allowing Benjamin Douglass to take over the booming business.[7]
In 1859, Douglass transferred the company to Robert Graham Dun, who immediately changed the firm's name to R. G. Dun & Company.[8] Over the next 40 years, Graham Dun continued to expand the business across international boundaries.
20th century
In March 1933, R. G. Dun & Company merged with competitor John M. Bradstreet to form today's Dun & Bradstreet.[9][10] The merger was engineered by Dun's CEO, Arthur Whiteside.[11] Whiteside's successor, J. Wilson Newman, worked to extend the company's range of products and services, expanding the company dramatically during the 1960s by engineering ways to apply new technologies to evolving operations.[11]
Moody's, a credit reporting agency, was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962. The Dun & Bradstreet Data Universal Numbering System (D&B D-U-N-S Number) was invented in 1963.[12]
21st century
In 2000, Dun & Bradstreet spun off Moody's Corporation.[21]
In 2001, Dun & Bradstreet acquired Harris InfoSource International, Inc., a data company. In February 2003, the company acquired Hoover's, a business reporting service.[22]
On February 5, 2003, Dun & Bradstreet restated prior period results to correct timing errors in recognizing some of the revenue associated with 14 of the company's 200+ products, after reviewing its revenue recognition from 1997 through 2002.[23][24] In August 2010, Dun & Bradstreet spun off and sold its credit monitoring and management business to a newly formed company, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. In 2007, Dun & Bradstreet acquired AllBusiness.com and sold the company in 2012.[25]
Operations
The company generates revenue through subscription-based products, business information reports, data licensing agreements, strategic partnerships, and concierge services.[2]
The company derives revenues through two segments: Americas, and non-Americas.
Americas consists of:
Non-Americas consists of:
- The United States and Canada[36]
- (The company divested its Latin America operations in September 2016)[37]
- Europe
- The United Kingdom
Products and services
Dun & Bradstreet offers various products and services solving for credit, risk, marketing, sales, analytics, and more, including D&B Hoovers,[3][41][42] Master Data,[43] and D&B Data Exchange.[44]
See also
- Credit rating agencies
- Mercantile agencies
External links
References
- US SEC: Form 10-K The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, February 22, 2024^
- Dun & Bradstreet Ushers in a New Era Yahoo Finance, March 10, 2015, retrieved 2017-09-13^
- Profile - Dun & Bradstreet Corp. Yahoo! Finance, retrieved September 12, 2014